Masses to Masses: Redux
by iNf3ctioNz
Summary: The year is 2181; two years before the events of the Mass Effect trilogy, a chance encounter on our Earth leads a rash, young student to a job in C-Sec's contraband division. Ian Shaw will have to face the worst of the Citadel's criminal underbelly, all while trying to piece together a new life, a way home, and an unlikely partnership with a turian he knows far too much about.
1. Ian vs The Light

Chapter 1

Grizfolk – Into the Barrens

* * *

" _There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory." - Sir Francis Drake_

* * *

Click.

Click.

Click.

Check the watch. 2:16am.

Click.

Click.

Check again. Still 2:16.

"Ach, screw this," I mutter, flicking my pen across the desk, gathering up the problem sheet into a heaped pile of papers, and shoving them to the side in a way that was supposed to prove cathartic, but just causes most of the sheets to slide off and onto the floor, accompanied by a heavy sigh. I can clean that up in the morning, and just hope my brain has cleaned itself up by then too.

I'm sure there was a good reason I went to university; something about making something of my education, furthering the pursuit of knowledge, getting a job. I take another cursory glance at the top of the floored work, briefly mulling over how twenty years of my life led to solving Lagrangeans. Six year old me probably thought that I'd be an astronaut by now. Way to drop the ball, Shaw.

I can see my breath misting up faintly in front of me as I open the bathroom door; a cramped, white cubicle that's barely big enough for a stand-up shower, never mind a toilet and a sink. I suppose it's entirely my own fault I'm up this late, but all the same, I'd rather blame the system than acknowledge a lack of application on my own part. That, and a sleep schedule that was slipping already.

I set about brushing my teeth, staring out the window into the pitch black evening, sighing again. At least we break up for Christmas in a couple of weeks. I can hold it out, take some time at home with friends, get everything back on track. Everybody goes through rough patches, after all, it's just-

The hell?

My eyes catch on something out in the dark; a flick of light, this almost otherworldly blue glow, that flashes out of existence almost as soon as I see it. At least until it's back a couple of seconds later, lingering for a brief moment this time, then gone...then back again.

It could quite easily just be someone messing around in the garden, or the fields nearby. Usually is, at this kind of hour; I suppose I should be thankful they're not making any noise.

But then it's back again, and the way the light sort of...bends, flows around an outline, is perplexing. Either way, it doesn't look like whoever's responsible is planning on moving on. Given that they're out pretty much in our back garden, I'm not feeling too comfortable about falling asleep with someone messing about this close to the house. Maybe if I wait five minutes?

It takes about that long to finish brushing my teeth, slip on some tartan pyjamas, slippers and a dressing gown, sitting up on the windowsill and seeing the light shifting about, still in that same spot. Well, shit. "Let's rent on the outskirts, we get all this garden room, look out onto the fields, save money," I grumble to myself as I quietly open the door to my room, imitating the voice of the 'friend' who pushed this whole idea through for the second year house. "Sure thing, Dan, it only takes an hour to walk into town, and we get the crazy people in the garden, I'm glad we save twenty pounds a month..." People usually run as soon as they see the kitchen light come on and hear the door opening, so I'm not overly concerned as I step outside, breath hitching at the sudden rush of cold as my slippered feet crunch against the gravel.

The light is coming from the field directly in front of our garden, so I flick on my phone's flashlight and make my way over to the small separating fence, vaulting over with one hand and managing to avoid tearing the back of my dressing gown. It's going to ruin my slippers, but I've not got the patience to worry about that right now. I just want this joker gone so I can get some sleep, especially since me coming all this way hasn't budged them.

"Hey, sorry, but this is private property, and it's nearly half two in the morning," I sigh, approaching the light source and swinging my own light up at it. "Can you maybe not hang around…"

My voice trails off, given what I see in front of me. The light swirling around an outline makes sense, given that it's being emitted from a person. Female, about six foot, so already having me at a disadvantage, wearing a fairly skin-tight, black, one piece catsuit kind of thing. Directly behind her, is what looks like some kind of enormous, black rectangle, with small rectangle jutting off it like legs, but it has mechanical ridges and gaps suggesting the presence of doors, engines, like some kind of bizarre vehicle.

Oh, and the woman is blue. To top it all off.

"Damn it," she says, turning to face me. The word cuts through the air; her voice is authoritative; frustrated, rather than panicked. At least she can stay calm, given that my limbs are already trembling like jelly as I try to work out what this is. Some kind of dream, maybe? I fell asleep while I was working at my desk? "You weren't supposed to see me like this. You were _supposed_ to be asleep."

"I, uh...sorry?" Apologising is just a reflex, given that my mouth and body are basically running on autopilot, as my brain pours all its available resources into trying to reconcile what I'm seeing with what I know can't be true. This is an asari, undeniably. But it can't be. That's not possible. In the same way that it can't be a Kodiak dropship right behind her. That's fiction, it's not real.

"And now this is what I get to work with," the woman mutters. I won't acknowledge her as an asari, I can't, there has to be another explanation for this. "Great."

"Look, if you're having problems, or you're lost, you can come in, have a cup of tea or something, I can get the police round," I start stammering, gesturing back in the vague direction of the house. It's the dark and the weird lighting, that'll be it, she's just...a strange looking lady, who got lost with her giant cardboard box, and light emitting catsuit. Christ, this is really happening, isn't it? There's no way this can't be what I think it is, but then...I can feel my heartbeat rising rapidly, blood pounding in my head, adrenaline kicking in. Should I run? Get help? She's a bloody alien, I need to panic, do something, not offer her tea-

It suddenly gets cold. I mean, it was already cold, but _really_ cold, like someone's pouring freezing water right into my veins. The asari sighs, and a quick look down at her hand shows a stubby looking thing, small, almost flat, curved like a gun. With her finger curled around the trigger of it. Definitely a gun...and when I try to run, my legs give way entirely, collapsing down to the ground as black spots dance on the edge of my vision.

I try to gasp something about her shooting me, the words rasping as they get caught in my throat, hand going to my chest and expecting to feel something warm from the impact. But I don't feel anything. By the time my hand reaches the fabric of my shirt, my vision has blanked out entirely, and then there's nothing at all. A faint awareness of an inky black, then -

* * *

My eyes jolt open, body following suit a second later as I break out into a coughing fit, rolling over onto the smooth, firm ground beneath me as my mind tries to catch up with everything my body's reacting to. Shooting. I got shot. There was that asari, in the field outside of my house, she shot me...but I'm not dead. I don't feel dead, at least. I think. I guess I don't have anything to base that on, but I'm moving, and the coughing sure as hell hurts enough to suggest I'm alive and in need of a functional pair of lungs.

Firm ground...shiny enough for me to see my own reflection in, actually. Slightly curly blonde hair, swept across to the side to try and hide it a little, though with recent events it's looking a bit ragged. Same for my face; bright blue eyes are in check, at least, along with the low brow, raised cheekbones, soft jaw and slightly freckled, narrow nose. The glance downwards also makes me realise that I'm not in my pyjamas anymore; instead, I've got on a fairly tight t-shirt thing, I suppose, though the raised collar and padded patches on the arms and sides are a hell of an odd style. Same for the trousers; hints of normality, at least, but the fabric still stretches in an incredibly comfortable fashion as I shift my legs and unsteadily stand up to get a better look around.

The alleyway I'm in is pretty non-descript, to be fair; raised, similarly shiny walls, and following them up with my eyes...there's not so much a sky as there is a dimmed light of the underside of something enormous, and lanes of blocky splotches shifting about in an orderly fashion above me. I can hear the muffled sounds of lively conversation around me, from out on the main streets, seeing all kinds of odd shaped people walking past in the distance.

I know exactly where I am, and right now, I'm really not sure whether that makes the situation better or worse. It doesn't make it any less impossible. This is the Citadel; the lower wards, specifically, though I've no idea where. The blocky splotches are cars, the underside is presumably part of the Presidium, and those odd shaped people are...respectively as they pass, a turian, volus, another volus, salarian…

I can feel myself getting dizzy again, reaching a hand out to rest against the alley wall and support myself, blinking rapidly as if that'll somehow help at this juncture. Unsurprisingly, it does absolutely nothing. The vision doesn't magically break apart, fracture around me; the world moves on, as I stand still and try to work out what the fuck I'm supposed to do beyond screaming. Just before I get to that point, though, a buzz on my arm and an orange display flickering open draw my attention to a familiar asari, her eyes narrowed.

"Good, you're awake. Listen closely. I've got a lot to tell you, and not a lot of patience to do it with."

"Not a lot of patience?" Anger, at least, manages to stifle out the rising sense of panic and despair, at least for a few seconds. "Listen, you fucking shot me, and now you're going to lecture me on-"

"With a tranquiliser. If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." I quickly yank up my shirt to check the skin beneath it, and true enough, I can just about make out a puncture mark from a dart, rather than any signs of scarring a bullet would probably cause. "You're alone, on an alien station. This is not your world. You have no friends, no resources, nowhere to go. If I decide you're not worth the trouble, you can deal with this yourself, do you understand?" And just like that, the panic and despair are back. Sure, I know the Mass Effect universe. Great. I'll be able to stumble around, jobless and homeless, with no idea of how to integrate into galactic society. I'll get to enjoy it for all of half a day, before I run out of money, and it's not like I'll be able to get much help when I can't even explain where I came from. Regardless of what she did to me, I need her.

"I understand." I can feel my voice trembling a bit as I say that, attempts at steeling myself not quite working out. "Look, I just want to go home, okay?"

"Then you shouldn't have wandered out and found me. It was this or killing you, and you should be glad I was charitable enough to opt for this option," she replies dismissively, brushing off my concern entirely. "Your omni-tool account has two thousand credits on it. You can work out how to use it yourself once we're done talking. Then get over to the C-Sec academy within the next two hours so you can have your job interview."

"My job interview-"

"I already fixed it so you've got the job, it's just a formality. You do need to turn up, though, so get your bearings, fast" the asari interrupts. "After that, it's up to you. Find somewhere to live. You'll be covered by the credits I gave you for a month or so, and then your pay can cover it after that."

"You're just giving me some money and then abandoning me? How is that fair?" I protest, trying frantically to keep up with all this information. "I have a family back on Earth, friends, I have a fucking life, you can't just drag me out here and act like giving some money makes it alright."

"I can't babysit you. Like I said, be grateful that you've got a life here."

"Well, how about I tell C-Sec that you abducted me?" I ask, trying to make my tone threatening as I stare her down on the vid-screen. "Maybe you should try treating me a bit nicer."

"Okay, tell C-Sec you got abducted by an asari, who brought you here from Earth. What was her name?" She gives me a smug smile.

"I dunno, but still..." I trail off, realising there's really nothing I can say here that'll counter her point. I'm not holding any cards here, and we both quite clearly know it.

"Oh, where did she take you from on Earth, sir? What date, what time, what place? Do you want to sit down, sir, are you sure you're feeling alright?" she continues, tone mocking. "Be grateful that I'm giving you a lifeline, Ian Shaw. Oh, and if you try telling anyone that you know about Reapers, or geth invasions, or that Saren Arterius is going rogue, well...they'll think you're crazier than with the abduction story."

"How do you know about any of that?" The asari gives a chuckle, reaching over to something out of shot. "Hey, I'm serious, what the hell-" The feed goes dead, leaving me gawping at a blank display, mind still racing, and anxious feeling still rooted deeply into my stomach.

Deep breaths, think it all through. However this asari knows all this stuff, she's right. I need this 'lifeline' of hers, and if I start talking about things I know, people are going to think I'm crazy. Right now, I need to go to this interview, find somewhere to stay, and then work on getting home. One step at a time. Survival now, escape later.

It doesn't make me stop feeling sick, but it helps the dizziness and fear get suppressed, at least for now, as I look back onto the main street of this ward, getting ready to step out and look for a way to C-Sec before a thought hits me. The asari talked about Saren and the geth invasion. What year even is it?

Getting the omni-tool to open again takes a couple of minutes in of itself, before I work out that it seems to open and close based on a hand gesture; opening my palm and rather deliberately and forcefully closing it gets the display up, and the date is prominently displayed in the upper right, skimming over to the last number. 2181. Two years before Mass Effect 1 kicks in.

At least I don't have to worry about a Reaper invasion for a couple of years, then. Weirdly enough, that doesn't particularly relieve the tension.

Closing the display, I take another deep breath, and my first steps out into the flow of Citadel foot traffic. Almost getting bowled over by a krogan skirting past the alleyway's entrance; he shoots me a glare that makes my stomach do a few flips before he lopes off.

I guess it's time to find C-Sec, and hope that I don't throw up on the walk there.

 **A/N: Hey, not dead.**

 **A lot has changed in my life since the last update; I've graduated university, started a job, got my own place, etc. So, in the spirit of a new start, I figured I'd address what was stopping me from continuing Masses to Masses 4; I really, really don't like 1 & 2, and they contain stuff and canon information that don't really reflect what I want to do with the rest of the series.**

 **So, in the interest of being open, here's the plan:**

 **Masses to Masses 1 and 2 will be getting redone and republished. I'm leaving the originals up for people who like them, but some details are going to get changed a bit so later stuff makes more sense.**

 **Masses to Masses 3 onwards are safe for right now, though I'll need to make minor edits to make sense in the new canon. That'll probably be through editing bits of existing chapters (I actually quite like 3).**

 **The bright side is that this won't take me as long, since I'm working off existing material and plots on shorter stories, though obviously updating the dialogue and stuff takes a bit of time. However, it's a project I've really wanted to do for a while, and it'll make me happier about writing more once it's done! There is also enough stuff changing that it should still be entertaining to read through again; you're basically getting MtM1 and 2 with less shoddy dialogue and characterisation, at least in theory.**

 **I don't want to give a time for updating/when this'll be done, since that hasn't really worked out for me in recent years, but I hope it's something you guys can look forward to. I appreciate it's probably not what everyone wanted, but I hope you can understand why I'm doing it.**

 **Cheers for the patience and messages while I've been gone. I do appreciate it, and I'm sorry about the wait.**


	2. Ian vs The Desk

Chapter 2

The Mowglis – Bad Dream

"Outta the way, human!"

"Sorry, sorry!" I practically yelp, jumping aside as a pissed off looking turian barges on past, mandibles flared in an angry expression. I only slowed down for half a second to check the map software on the omni-tool that I'm still getting to grips with, but the flow of foot traffic is merciless, grumbles and occasional glares following as I press myself up against the ward's wall and try to shrink into it. The Citadel always seemed so much calmer in the games...I guess Shepard never visited during what I can only assume is commuter hour.

Getting a read on time is difficult, given the artificial nature of the place, but it seems to be the morning rush. People look too well dressed and groomed to be heading home...I think. It's hard to tell with aliens.

Real aliens. The initial childlike sense of wonder I got from that was quickly dashed when I realised that it wasn't a sentiment they shared about me; from the few mutters of 'tourist' that I've heard, they're just writing me off as an inexperienced dawdler.

If only they knew the half of it.

The mapping software, to its credit, is quick once I've scrambled to type in "c-sec academy", correcting the spelling errors that result from the unfamiliarity of a holographic display that uses gesture control. An hour and twenty-six minutes, with a lot of straight lines and elevators; I guess I'm on some kind of main street in the lower wards, given how everyone seems to be splitting off to various elevators leading into higher levels, presumably containing offices and the like.

This must be more of a residential area; I guess it would've made it easier for the asari to drop me off here. A symbol of what looks like some kind of bus implies fast transit is an option...but I've got the time to kill, and I'm really not feeling confident enough to grapple with alien public transport, all things considered.

Still, even as I set off and continue grappling with the gravity of my newfound situations, a couple of thoughts do hit me. I can understand what aliens are saying, which means I've got a translator implant at least somewhere; which in turn, begs the question of just how long I was unconscious, and what happened when I was out. If the asari brought a shuttle to my Earth, does that mean there was a Mass Relay to bring me out into the Citadel? I've seen humans walking around, though, so unless I was somehow unconscious for nearly a hundred and sixty years, that can't be right. Then there's the question of why she just dumped me in an alley with the new clothes and omni-tool, rather than somewhere a little more comfortable or hospitable.

I doubt I'll find out the answer to either of those questions soon, but mulling them over saves me from having to deal with the bigger issues. An interview with C-Sec is great and all, but I've no law enforcement experience beyond trash TV shows, no experience with alien culture beyond an overview in a fucking video game, of all things. The idea that this is all real and happening is still ludicrous, a small part of my brain fighting furiously to resist it despite everything going on right in front of my eyes. What the hell are my family going to do? If I'm this far in the future, they'll have to be dead, and that assumes we're even in the same reality. If this is some kind of alternative universe, then getting back might be possible, but I've got no way of knowing how…

I'm brought out of deep thought by practically walking into the back of a volus who was below my eyeline, getting myself a wheeze of frustration as he sidles slightly to the side and lets me get past. There's too many questions right now, too many things to worry about, and if I stop and try to think about them all I'm not going to be able to function. It's a shitty situation and I'm going to...do something. Eventually. Find a way out. Right now I just focus on getting through each minute, and save the worrying for when I've got something that remotely resembles a bit of safety.

* * *

The walk takes an hour and twenty six minutes exactly, and I've learned a couple of things by the time I step out into the blue-tinged lobby of the C-Sec Academy. The main Citadel areas seem slightly warmer than I expected, like a fairly hot summer day; presumably to suit turian and salarian inhabitants, seeing as they've been in the place a lot longer than humans have. It's fairly pleasant, but it explains the tendency for humans to wear thinner garments, or t-shirts when they can get away with it, while other species tend to opt for thicker fabrics.

Secondly, the elevators really are as slow as made out. I can only assume the distances we're travelling between 'floors' is vast, because it takes a solid minute to get up from the lower ward elevator, crammed in between a bunch of officers and civilian visitors. Plenty of turians in uniform, a few salarians...the only human I see is after the elevator doors open, sat behind the inquiry desk in the middle of the hall. I guess that should probably be my first port of call, find out some more about this 'interview' I'm supposed to have, despite being about half an hour early. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or say in there, but given the asari mentioned it being a 'formality', I can only assume that me fucking it up isn't a major concern. After that...I have no idea how to even go about being a C-Sec officer.

Christ, I don't want a job, I want a way out. What the hell am I doing? I walked over here through a bloody alien civilisation, casual as anything, to interview for a job in the fucking space police, which I have no qualifications for. Just seeing the desk, and realising that I'm somehow supposed to do this, is making the reality suddenly sink in, and sink in hard. How am I supposed to just make a life here? Once I've done this, then what? Just knowing about something from a game doesn't set me up to exist in it.

I freeze up in the middle of the atrium, halfway between the elevator and desk. I should just turn around, get out of here, find the nearest spaceport and use the credits to get back to Earth, back home, there'll have to be something-

No, it's too far in the future. The asari said this 'wasn't my world'; I'm not sure if that was meant literally, in that the Citadel isn't Earth, or if I'm in an entirely different universe, but it doesn't matter. Anyone familiar to me is either dead or doesn't exist.

Then I should leave and find a job doing something else, something less dangerous, that keeps me out of trouble. Save up some money, get away from the Citadel-

With what? I've no physical evidence of qualifications, identity, anything. Even if I did, what then? Work as a shop assistant in a colony somewhere and wait for the Reapers to annihilate organic life? I've got about seven or eight years, at most, before whatever the hell Mass Effect 3 involves happens, and I can only assume that's an apocalyptic scenario I stand no chance of surviving. And it's not even like I can do anything now to stop it, because everyone's going to think I'm crazy.

I'm going to die out here, one way or another. Stick around in C-Sec and get murdered by the first geth that come through the Conduit, get harvested by the Reapers a few years later if I avoid that, nowhere to run and nobody to turn to, no way back home-

"Sir? Are you okay?"

The voice snaps me back to reality, practically jumping out my skin as I look up at the human from the inquiry desk. He's about six feet, mid thirties at a guess, with mousy brown hair, a broad nose, and notably sharp features, looking at me with what appears to be genuine concern. "Are you lost?" he asks.

It takes me a few seconds to find my voice, clearing it as I try to bury the wave of anxiety that rushed up in the past minute. Focus on getting through each minute, survive. I can do this, for now, and work something out afterwards. "No, no, sorry, I'm just...here for the job interview," I finally manage to explain, despite my mouth feeling dry enough to host its own desert ecosystem. "I set off really early, didn't want to get lost, and I'm about thirty minutes early..." I trail off, hoping he knows what I'm talking about.

The look of concern passes...before his eyes narrow. "You're Ian Shaw?"

At least they're expecting me, I guess. "Yep, that's me," I reply, trying to inject at least some cheer into my voice, well aware that I'm probably as pale as a sheet.

"Right. I'll tell the Executor you've arrived, then," he mutters, heading back over to the desk and leaving me confused as to whether or not I'm supposed to follow him. He turns around to see me still dawdling, sighing and gesturing to the benches against the walls. "Take a seat and wait, he'll get to you when he can."

"The Executor?" I manage to ask, trying to piece together what little knowledge I have of C-Sec, shoving the thoughts of Reaper harvesting to the back of my mind with limited success. "Pallin? Isn't his office up in the Presidium?"

The officer fixes me with what I can only assume is his best 'are you serious' expression, a withering half-eye roll accompanied with another gentle sigh. "The Executor is based there, but he finds the time to move between buildings as and when the job requires. Which you'd know, if you'd spent any time on this force."

There's definitely hostility behind that, and curiosity weighs out over the feeling of intimidation. "Sorry, I'm new? I'm interviewing for a new job, I don't understand why I'd have needed to have spent time on the force."

He gawks at me for a second, before shaking his head in disbelief. "You do realise you're getting interviewed to be the first human detective, right? What that means? People like me spend fifteen years on the force, and when the Council finally approve this, they hand it over to some kid fresh out of university. I mean, no offence, but it just isn't right, you know?"

Detective? When the asari mentioned C-Sec, I assumed she meant as a regular officer, not something that major. I'm hideously underqualified for this – something that the desk officer seems to have picked up on too. "Look, I just got told to turn up for the interview," I say weakly. "I didn't mean to step on any toes."

"No, course you didn't," he mutters, and the anger seems to fade a little bit, although not entirely. "Do you see what I mean, though? People put in the long service, and they decide the graduates are the one who deserve the push." He opens his mouth to add something else, before shaking his head. "Ah, forget it, Pallin's gonna chew you out plenty without me adding to it."

"So he's not happy to see me either?" I don't remember the Executor being too fond of humans in Mass Effect 1.

"Kid, the only people happy about this are the Council and the ambassador. C-Sec upper ranks aren't human free 'cos of a lack of applications," he replies, looking back down at his terminal. "Have a seat. I'll let you know when the Executor is ready to see you."

"Right. Thanks," I say, lingering unsteadily for a second before deciding to just do as I'm told, heading over to a bench and pretty much collapsing on it.

First human detective. I can see why he's pissed off; if I'd worked at C-Sec for that long and got passed over for some new kid fresh from Earth, I'd be angry too, and if Pallin doesn't like humans as is, I'm not really going to change his mind. I haven't even started yet, and I'm already the least popular guy in the precinct.

Still, the nature of the job brings me back to how long I was unconscious. If that asari organised all this, it must've been a hell of a task. Faking qualifications, background information, history, test results, probably interview information, landing them on the right desk and making sure I got picked...that's not a job for overnight, especially given that this is the _first_ human detective.

Either I've been unconscious for a while, long enough to put all of this together and get me to the end of that process, or this is something that was planned well in advance.

She did seem surprised to see me back on Earth, but then I don't even know why she was there in the first place. Observing, and I bumped into her? Even then, going to _this_ much trouble of getting me a job, even when she acted so callous on that call either...something doesn't add up on this. Combined with her knowing what I know about this place, this universe or reality, or whatever, this is too deliberate.

C-Sec isn't just a random choice to put someone so they can get on their feet, and first human detective on top of it? What if...

I get up off the bench again, walking back over to the desk. "Hey, excuse me. Can I just double check the department I'm interviewing for? Detective, but the specific area?"

I get another glare for my trouble. I could probably count the amount of glaring I've been received on two hands today, and that's not even with Pallin included yet. "You don't know the department you're interviewing for?"

"Just want to make sure there's not been a mix up, y'know." Realising I've put myself into a corner here, I decide to take a guess based on the assumption I've got building up. "I was told contraband…?"

"Yeah, it's for contraband detective. Guess they're smart enough not to let you get involved with homicide or something serious first." He smirks at his own joke, but I'm too busy heading back to the bench, the sensation in my legs forcing me to take a seat.

This is all too much to be a coincidence. A feeling of guilt wouldn't lead that asari to all this trouble, to set me up in this exact department, fabricate all the evidence it would've required. I already know that she's got all my knowledge about Mass Effect events, because there's only one C-Sec detective that I know, and he just happens to work contraband.

Garrus Vakarian.

If anything, that just doubles the urgency for me to get the hell out of here and find something else. Whatever this is, that asari is setting me up; I don't know why she wants me close to Garrus, but this has to be on purpose. Why, though? I can't tell anyone what I know, like she said, and it's not like Garrus needs the help before Mass Effect 1. As much as I like the guy in the games, getting to know him in reality is something else entirely, assuming that even happens.

The alternative choices, of course, are still vague at best. Take the credits and get off planet, do something else, put this behind me and wait for armageddon. Blue pill or red pill. Get the hell out, or see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Probably six feet under.

In the end, though, the desk officer clearing his throat decides for me, and I look up to see him standing in front of me.

"The Executor got out of a meeting early. He'll see you now."

Screw it. I'm backed into a corner, and if this asari can travel across worlds, following what she wants might just be my ticket out of here. It's the only real chance I have; running leaves me in an even worse situation than what I'm facing here. Maybe once I've done whatever she has in mind, I can get taken back, go back to normality. It's that, or consigning myself to being stuck in this place forever.

No choice, then. Let's see where this is all leading.


	3. Ian vs The Executor

Chapter 3

Young Kato - Runaway

A sense of dread settles over me as I raise a hand up to the panel on Pallin's door, or at least the door on the meeting room that he's borrowed, given that his place is on the Presidium. At least the user interface on them isn't too tricky to work out; just stick your finger over the bit that holographically displays 'open' and in you go, though I can feel the desk sergeant's eyes boring into the back of my skull as I take a few figures to figure it out.

Still, that sense of dread leading up to opening the door is nothing compared to having Pallin's eyes settle on me, an obviously cold expression on his face. He always cut a fairly intimidating figure in the games; not through size, but through the constant narrowed eyes, the curt tone to his voice, the lingering sense of impatience that he seems to exude when confronted with people he doesn't like. I'm getting that, and then some. This is the first time a turian has properly looked at me, addressed me, after all; this is going to be my second conversation with an alien, and one significantly more 'alien' looking than an asari. Someone who, from what I'm guessing, thinks I'm a native to this universe.

"Executor," I manage to stammer out, stepping over towards the table where he's sat, and reaching out with a hand. "Thanks for seeing me." It's not a good attempt at an icebreaker. Pallin stares blankly at my hand, and the thought hits me that he might not even be familiar with this bit of human etiquette. That or he just doesn't care.

"Sit."

The door slides shut, but I swear that I catch a smirk on the desk sergeant's face just before it closes entirely.

I muster up the courage to meet Pallin's eyes and get a better look at him. Dark brown plates, mandibles shifting when he opens his mouth, that intense white clan-paint covering pretty much every inch of his facial plates. Whereas Garrus has the two fairly subdued blue lines across his cheeks, Pallin has a significantly more complex design; streaks of white arching from his chin, around his cheeks and eyes, cresting at the top of his head with multiple different strokes and flourishes. There's that sharp intelligence to his eyes that all turians seem to have, probably from their avian descendency; a sharp, predatory gaze that makes me fight the instinct to just shrink into my seat.

"So," the turian mutters, after letting the silence hang there for a few seconds, and using one of those taloned hands to flick at the datapad sat on the table in front of him. "Ian Shaw, twenty-one years old, fresh out of university. An _economics_ graduate." He practically spits the word. "Shouldn't you be on Ilium? Working for a volus firm? If you're smart enough to get onto a C-Sec scheme, this seems like a waste of your degree."

Well, at least he's getting straight in with the interview questions. It's a more hostile tone than the few job interviews I've been to before, but the question isn't all the dissimilar, just dressed up in a different way; why do you want to work at C-Sec? I just have to pretend that he's a regular, human interviewer, not an alien, and that I'm not almost entirely reliant on getting this job. I've done this before.

"I probably could be, sure," I nod, trying to get some confidence about this. It's fortunate that I always did like the sound of C-Sec when I was playing the Mass Effect games; it's an enthusiasm I can hopefully put across to him. "Make an easy few million credits playing their markets, retire when I'm thirty-five, live out the rest of my life as the vapid denizen of some up-market planet like Bekenstein." I give Pallin a smile, trying to build some momentum on this. It's how I'd play a normal interview, for a normal job; I have to assume that this won't be much different, despite the hostile audience. "Or, I could come to the centre of galactic civilisation, and do something with my life that actually makes a difference. The degree's a means to an end. It just proves that I've got a capacity to learn, and that's what this is all about, right?"

"I'm filling a detective position. The role is _vital_ to Citadel Security. I would've liked someone with a bit of experience, not a keen learner. We have plenty of those already," Pallin sighs. He doesn't look particularly impressed by that impassioned defence, and I can already feel myself deflating a little under his withering glare and impassive tone. "It says here you're Earth-born as well. United Kingdom?" His eyes narrow again. If he keeps on at this rate, they're going to be closed in a minute. "Did you see many aliens there? Earth is more isolated than many other homeworlds."

For some reason, I don't see the UK being quite as keen on aliens turning up to visit, so I shake my head cautiously. Gives a reasonable cover for the truth, too. "I haven't met many, no. Most of the one I met were at university, and they were...well, more extreme characters." Everyone in the Mass Effect game has their quirks, so I can't exactly claim that Mordin is representative for most salarians. "Again, though, that's part of the reason I wanted to join up. I was sick of being isolated, stuck somewhere cautious about embracing the wider galaxy."

"Your people seem more than happy to embrace, as long as they get something out of it," Pallin countered. "The Alliance have only recently been talking to us about increased co-operation with their officials stationed on the Citadel, and that's only because I 'agreed' to entertain the idea of a human in a higher ranked position." He fixes me with a firm stare. "You are a political convenience. I hope you understand that."

"If that's the case, why are we even going through this interview?" I ask, leaning forward and placing my forearms on the table. He's scary, for sure, but just dropping that is making me realise something more important; Pallin is kind of an asshole, and I'm getting sufficiently pissed off to overcome my various other anxieties. If I'm a 'political convenience', it's not like he's going to turn me down. "What's the point of asking me any questions at all?"

"Because I have to make a good impression to the Council and your _Alliance."_ There's some serious venom in that last word. "These formalities have to take place, or it reflects poorly on me. That said, nobody is observing the content of such formalities, so let me make my position clear. I cannot force you out of here. C-Sec is my priority, and if hiring you means we get your people to stop stonewalling half our investigations, then I can swallow my pride. That said." His mandibles stretch into a much more sinister...grin, I suppose? It's hard to tell with turians. "If you quit, that only reflects poorly on you. I can prove that this 'experiment' was a waste of all our time, and life continues as it was before you were brought to my attention."

"So, what, you're just going to try and make me quit?" I ask, looking at him blankly for a few seconds as I try to process both his startling bluntness, and the fact he's actually enough of a prick to do this. Son of a bitch. I knew Pallin wasn't exactly pro-human, but this is an extreme, and the thought of a turian of his standing specifically making an effort to get rid of me has those anxious feelings in my stomach ramping back up to eleven. "You can't even entertain the idea of a human being competent enough for this job?"

"Perhaps a human will eventually be ready, but not while your species still clamors to understand the vastness of the galaxy you so bluntly pushed your way into," he replies, mandibles twitching into what I'm entirely certain is a frown. "You should understand the gravity of what you've accepted. Performance for detectives is judged harshly, especially given the...uniqueness, of your particular position. What would normally be a year's worth of training, we'll be compressing into six months, and if you fall below the required parameters, you will be removed from this programme. I was informed that you were capable of handling it." His eyes glint dangerously. "Are you? Even some of our finest turian candidates balk at what is involved qualifying for such a position."

He's right, I could just leave. Is this even worth it? Doing a job for someone who specifically hates me. From what the desk sergeant said, the whole of C-Sec hates me for getting into this, too. Intense training, being watched like a hawk for any slip-up, and thrown out if I don't perform. I could just save everyone the trouble and quit now...which would make Pallin's day.

I'm stronger than that, I have to be. With his views on humans, he's almost certainly exaggerating this, too. If I'm stuck on this station, I'm not letting this prick block me out of my best chance at getting home. "I'm capable," I manage to reply, pushing down the shake in my voice. "I didn't go through all of this to get bullied out of it. You don't want me here, fine, I get it. We don't have to be friends. But I'm not going to give you and the rest of the place the satisfaction of being able to label humans as quitters." That's something I have to remind myself, too. However that asari wrangled this, I'm setting an example for human development, here. I fuck this up, and I push the equality movement backwards for at least a few years. I'm not 'pro-human' by any means, but I'm not supportive of a turian stranglehold on C-Sec either.

Pallin sits there for a few seconds, tapping a talon on his chin, before giving a chuckle and shaking his head. "An admirable sentiment, though I suspect it's born from naivety. To be expected, given that they sent a child." I bunch my fists at that, but bite back a retort. It won't do much good, and I can't give him any excuses to make my life harder than it already is. "Still, I'm glad to have...what is you humans say? Removed the air?"

"Cleared the air," I correct him. "And yeah, thanks for the clarity. I'm glad you didn't even bother pretending to like me."

"I keep C-Sec as straightforward an organisation as possible. We leave the political posturing and maneuvering for the ambassadors and politicians in the Tower," he chuckles, a deep, flanging rumble that seems to pass through the table and up my forearms. "You report in at-" He checks his omni-tool. "Yours will be calibrated to human time, so report in at what is equivalent to '6am'."

"Six?" I ask, raising my brows in alarm. "How long do people work in C-Sec?"

"You'd be on shift until 6pm." Pallin seems to really draw out the human time terms, obviously not enjoying them. "Tomorrow will just be your induction around the building, meeting your department and your future partner, before you're introduced to your Academy tutors and begin the training process. I'd recommend you don't think about the hours. With your condensed training, any time you're not here, you'll be needing to spend studying. Now, if that's all, I do have important matters to attend to. You can show yourself out and prepare for tomorrow."

I'm left at something of a loss for words, eventually standing up as Pallin turns his attention to his datapad, not even bothering to look up as I leave the room, and pretty much walk straight into Garrus.

"Oh, sorry-" I start saying, before my breath catches as I see the extremely familiar turian looking down at me. Eye visor attached, same blue C-Sec armour, those blue markings I was thinking about before present and correct across his cheeks. Younger than I remember him looking, and lacking the massive scar across his face. I'd forgotten what he looked like back before all that.

Still, the fact I'm stood right in front of him makes it really hard to focus on things like forming words or coherent sentences, just standing in front of him as I try to rationalise the fact I know this man's future for the next four years, what he'll be involved in, the friends he'll make, decisions he'll have to live with-

"Ian, right?" he asks, looking me up and down with a visible sense of...disappointment?

"Y-yeah?"

"I'm Garrus Vakarian." He does, in fairness, reach out a hand, but the movement is awkward, and he places at around my shoulder height, making me contort my arm slightly to meet it and almost get my hand crushed by his grip. "I'll be your partner in contraband once you've left the Academy. Pallin told me that you'd be coming in. We're supposed to be meeting tomorrow, but I was in the area and figured I'd come by for a couple of minutes and see what I'd be dealing with."

"Oh, well. Thanks." At least he seems more friendly than Pallin. I just need to stop being so starstruck and get through this conversation. "It's, uh, nice to meet you, Garrus." He eventually lets go of my hand, and I try not to wince as I place it back at my side. "I guess you picked the short straw getting me, huh?"

"What?" He looks confused.

"You know, you were the unlucky one. It's a human thing, everyone takes a straw from a jaw, and whoever gets the shortest one has to do something that everyone else doesn't want to do..." I trail off at Garrus' blank expression. "I'm just saying, you must be the unlucky one for getting lumped with me."

The turian shrugs uncomfortably. Fuck, I meant it as a joke, but am I even wrong? "It's fine," he eventually says. Hardly a firm rebuttal. There's a lingering silence as I struggle to think of anything to say on top of that, before he gestures over his shoulder. "Look, I need to go and chase someone up on a report for a red sand case I'm on, but it was nice to meet you, Ian, even just briefly. We can talk more tomorrow."

"Right, yeah, thanks for coming by," I nod, forcing a smile onto my face for him. "I'll see you tomorrow!" He gives me a cursory nod in return, before heading off towards the lobby. I watch him leave, before heaving an enormous sigh, giving it a few more seconds before following in the same direction.

I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else. The Garrus I know of was always awed by Shepard, and that made their conversations a lot easier; they had a common goal, and Shepard actually chose Garrus to be on his or her team. I might pretty much hero worship the guy, but to him, I'm pretty much nobody. The human that he has to babysit. Hell, if Pallin's been talking to him, he's probably convinced I'm going to be quitting in a couple of weeks too.

Sighing, I flick open my omni-tool with the hand-squeezing gesture. Right now, I just need to find somewhere I can sleep. With the credits I got from the asari, it should be enough to get into a hotel, at least until I find somewhere to rent. I can find out how the Citadel property market works, between working out what food I can eat without killing myself on dextro based substances, and studying so that I don't lose this job and get trapped in the future forever.

So, when I see a message flash up from the only pre-programmed number on my omni-tool, it gives me a flash of hope that I've so desperately needed.

 _'Get to Delaran Heights Hotel, Surda Ward. We need to talk about what happens next. -S.'_

If that asari wants to talk, then I'm ready for it. I pull up the Citadel map from my omni-tool, plotting my course and stepping back out of the C-Sec Academy, sparing a glance back at the place that's going to become very familiar to me in the coming months.

I'll just have to see what she has to say. Right now, I'm entirely at the mercy of what she has planned; perhaps I can finally start getting some answers about all of this.

Start working out a way back.

 **A/N: Apologies for the delay on this, I've had some busy weekends, and work has been pretty hectic.**


	4. Ian vs The Asari

Chapter 4  
Borrowed Lives - Pierce Fulton, NVDES

Delaran Heights Hotel, it turns out, sounds a lot snazzier than it actually is. Surda Ward isn't unpleasant, per say; speaking from a perspective almost two centuries old at this point, it's got all the futuristic, curved white architecture expected from the Citadel, it has alien species milling around, holographic signs, but there's just something mundane about it. A basic looking front desk, pleasant but bored looking turian manning the terminal. A brief exchange of meetings, I give him my name, there's a brief bit of confusion as he scans my credit chit to confirm my identity, then I'm given the key up to room 231.

The same practicality applies to the room; a double bed, at least, cramped with what I can only assume is the framework for a holographic display, a couple of sliding cupboards, a desk, and then an ensuite bathroom, which I don't get to check out due to the more pertinent matter of who's standing in front of me.

"Good, you made it," the asari from back on Earth says, flashing me a smile. "Did the interview go well?"

Something about the way she just casually says that, the way it sounds so _normal,_ immediately makes me lose my patience. "The fuck do you care?" I ask, folding my arms. "You ripped me from my home, my entire life, and that's what you say in person? Doesn't bloody matter how the interview went, because you're sending me back _right now._ "

"I'm not, actually," she responds calmly, though there's a hint of a sigh behind it. "Maybe you should sit down."

"Why the hell not?" I remain resolutely stood up; it's a petty show of defiance, but it's about all I've got right now.

The asari gives a frustrated shake of her head. "A couple of reasons. First of all, it's not magic. I can't just click my fingers and send you back. It's something that takes time, preparation. I only worked out how to do it after a decade of study and preparation."

I shake my head frantically, finding that too difficult to accept. "A decade? No, no, I am _not_ staying here for ten years! What the fuck am I going to do? I'm not cut out for C-Sec, and you know fine well there's going to be a Reaper invasion well before then-"

"You really should sit down," the asari mutters. "It took me ten years how to work it out, I could do it again a lot faster. Maybe in a few months." Okay, good, at least there's some hopes. I must be able to blag my way through C-Sec for that long, just stick in with the training and then get out of here as soon as she's ready. "You're going to be sticking around for a while longer than that, though. At least three or four years."

"Why? I don't understand, what the fuck do you want from me?" I can feel my voice rising, but this seems as appropriate a time for it as any. "I'm not stupid, you put me in C-Sec for a reason, put me close to Garrus for a reason. Is that what this is about?"

"See, you've got at least some natural competency for being a detective," she smirks. What I'd give to wipe it off her face, but I'd have absolutely no chance. "I saw what you know about those...games." There's obvious distaste in her voice, but she doesn't stop to reflect on it. "It's incredible, really, our whole universe, way of life, distilled into a throwaway bit of entertainment. In one universe out there, no doubt someone reflected on your own world as a bit of fiction too." Well, this confirms the theory I had about being in an entirely separate universe, something that at least isn't giving me much more anxiety at this point. Not like it's coming as an enormous shock, and the sheer magnitude of what I'm dealing with makes it to hard to find a proportional reaction.

"You're talking about...parallel universes, multiverses, whatever the term is?" I ask.

"Ah, you're familiar with them?" Her eyes light up.

"In so much as I know the names. Not got any idea how it's all supposed to work." Her eyes narrow again. "Oh, fuck off. Maybe you should've kidnapped a physicist if you wanted to talk about this kind of thing."

"You've got the general idea, at least," she sighs. "I saw what you know. Everything up until the Collector base being destroyed, in your case at least. I was hoping to see everything that happened afterwards, what the Reapers do, but we'll have to make do."

"We?" I quirk my brows, before shaking my head. "There's no 'we'. You can't just drag me in here and expect me to help with whatever this is. I'm fine fighting Reapers in the safety of my home, not in person."

"Well, you certainly won't be getting home if 'we' don't work together," she replies bluntly. "You help me, I help you." Shit. The thought of being stuck here forever is still making me want to throw up, and the asari seems to take my silence as tacit agreement. "Those games of yours, there was an element of choice, right? Like with that Collector base, you could have had your 'Shepard' give it to Cerberus."

Discussing the future with a real life asari. Surreal. "Yeah, potentially, she could've kept it. Or he."

"And that would be a terrible mistake, right? Letting it fall into Cerberus' hands?"

I pause for a second, trying to work out where she's going with this. "I mean, yes, there's an argument for that, but you could make the case for it going the other way too, couldn't you?"

She shakes her head firmly. "I disagree. I've been thinking over all the major decisions Shepard has to make, the possibilities, the outcomes. There has to be an objective, optimal series of choices, and that's where you come in. You make sure that's what happens."

I stare at her, before bursting into a short laugh. "You're not serious, right? I'm supposed to do what, tell Commander Shepard no if she makes a decision you don't like? Why the hell would a Shepard even listen to me?"

"Well, you get close to Garrus, work on the Saren case together, get recruited onto her ship. From there you can at least make sure things stay predictable, follow what happened in the games. If those games go one way, and we're living in that timeline of events, as I hypothesise, we know that it creates a scenario that's winnable, right? The problem is, because of all the choices that can be made, we don't know _what_ version of that timeline we're in, and we can influence it towards the best series of events."

I shake my head, looking over at the door. Maybe I should just run. She's crazy, has to be. "Look, come on, be realistic. I have no military experience, and I can't...how am I supposed to keep everything on the rails like that? At best, all I can do is advise, I can't force Shepard to do anything." It's completely ludicrous. The series of events that would require, the level of expertise I'd need to develop in two years time.

"Liara T'Soni isn't a military specialist, and from what I saw, she got recruited. Neither is Tali." The asari shrugs. "Advising and influencing is better than nothing. It's that or we leave it up to chance, and I'm not ready to do that."

"How does dumping me in make it better than chance? I'm a walking liability, I've never even shot a gun, at least Tali and Liara had done that," I point out, before gesturing at her. "Why don't _you_ just do it? Go to C-Sec and get yourself recruited to Shepard's team with Garrus?"

"I can't."

"That's pathetic, you _can't?_ Why, you're too scared to go into the firing line?"

"No, I literally can't." The words come slowly, deliberately, carrying a threatening undertone beneath them as she _glares_ at me. "You know what Vrolik's disease is. That 'Joker' character has it."

My face falls as I realise what she's talking about. Brittle bone disease. "Shit. I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

She waves it off, but I obviously touched a nerve. Even after everything she's done to me, I feel bad for just bulldozing into it like that. "It's not as bad as his, but we need someone on the front lines for this. Someone there for every decision. Anybody else we tell about this will think we're crazy, so that only leaves me one choice. You. Believe me, I wish this was possible any other way, but you're going to just have to pay a lot of attention during your C-Sec training."

"This is still a crazy idea. What if I make it worse and get someone killed when they're trying to help me?" I ask her. Part of me already realises that she isn't going to be put off from this idea, but it's worth trying. "I get what you're trying with this, really, I do. But if you want to keep things the same, maybe it's better I stay as far away as possible."

"Maybe. Or maybe we end up with a Shepard who wants to give the Collector base to Cerberus, and gets their whole crew killed. You know what's coming, and even if you can't keep every choice optimal, you can at least make sure the right people stay alive. To me, this is the best chance." I guess that's true. I know what upgrades the SR-2 needs for the crew to stay alive, how to talk Wrex down on Virmire, I can at least contribute there.

"And I guess I'm not getting home if I don't go with your opinion on this," I mutter. "You're blackmailing me."

"We could be saving the galaxy, here."

"Stop saying 'we'." I shake my head. There's no other choice here; I have to at least entertain this, or I'm trapped, forever. "If you're going to force me into this, fine, I'll do it. But you send me home as soon as my knowledge runs out."

"Seems like an entirely reasonable deal," the asari smiles. Bullshit. This isn't reasonable, at all, but I bite my tongue on it. I'm in no position to be making promises like this, but it gets her out of the room for now, and it at least keeps my avenue of escape open. Assuming I'm not dead by the time she can make good on her deal. The asari makes for the door, walking with a now rather noticeable limp. "For right now, you should rest up and focus on C-Sec. We can talk more about this later."

"Hey, wait a second," I call out to her. "I still don't understand all this. If this was your plan, why did you just dump me in the street when I woke up? Why only explain this now?"

"I wanted to create a sense of urgency and confusion, so you'd do as I told you, at least at first. Sorry." Well, she just gets nicer and nicer. "It worked, at least." Like that's some kind of consolation…

"Why were you in my universe in the first place? You said something about expecting me to be asleep when we first met," I point out to her.

That gets me a small glare, but she notably looks to the side for a split second. It's quick, but she seems notably uncomfortable. "It was night, you were supposed to be sleeping. I just meant it generally, not specifically because I expected _you_ to be asleep. I wasn't expecting any of this either, but when I saw your memories, I knew I had to do something." I'm not sure how much of that I believe; I guess she'd have had no way of hunting me down specifically, and I'd be flattering myself to think I warranted special attention like that. Still, the whole 'had to do something' spiel feels far too altruistic for her. That said, I've got no way to call her out on it, so I just let it slide. Just as I'm about to let her go, before I realise something else.

"What's your name?"

She blinks, before giving a little chuckle. "I never did say, did I? Shai'ira. If that's all, I'll be in touch." This time I don't stop her, letting the asari show herself out, before flopping back onto the bed and running my hands through my hair as I try to work this all out.

The positive, at least, is that I have a better understanding of what I'm doing here, and what the point of this is. Even a stupid purpose is better than none at all.

The overwhelming negatives, of course, get to the forefront of my brain not long after that. Her plan is baffling in its stupidity and assumptions. I do, at least, somewhat understand her point. I don't entirely disagree that some decisions are objectively better than others, and I see what she means about making sure things roughly stick to the games; it's unlikely that the course the games were headed on was guaranteed to end in failure, but deviation could render things 'unwinnable', so to speak.

Still, that leaves me with the task of making sure that happens, which means ending up on the SR-1, making sure Shepard makes good decisions somehow, and preventing major changes to canon, whilst simultaneously being a major change to canon myself. It's an impossible situation, but I end up trapped if I don't agree to it. Ultimately, what choice do I have?

With her argument in my head now, I'm not sure I could just hide and hope Shepard defeats the Reapers, after all. What if they got Wrex killed, or Garrus, or they side with Cerberus? Can I really go somewhere else and be okay with the fact I could've done _something?_

It's all a moot point if I don't manage to make it through C-Sec training. Right now, that's what I've got to worry about. Keep everything together, work out this universe, stay alive. If I can last two years here, I can make a better decision then. Sighing, I roll out of the bed, and have a root around for the room service menu. Eat, sleep, and feel better in the morning.

Somehow I doubt it, but at least it's something to hope for.


	5. Ian vs The Fourth Month

Chapter 5  
Waiting for My Time to Come – Colony House

 _"Tomorrow will just be your induction around the building, meeting your department and your future partner, before you're introduced to your Academy tutors and begin the training process," Pallin mutters, looking back down to his desk. "I'd recommend you don't think about the hours. With your condensed training, any time you're not here, you'll be needing to spend studying. Now, if that's all, I do have important matters to attend to. You can show yourself out and prepare for tomorrow."_

I'd never expected Pallin to dress up the truth about the hard work involved in becoming a detective, but there was no exaggeration in what the turian told me back in his office. As soon as Shai'ira left and I had the chance to eat, I managed to get some fitful sleep – maybe four hours of broken up tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable on a strange bed, breathing in the artificial air, twitching every time the bizarre sounds of living in an alien civilisation filtered through the windows. Back home, there was only ever the wind, maybe a few drunks shouting at each other when the pubs emptied out. In a city like the Citadel, with a population from all across the galaxy, everything I hear is new. I have to engage the rational part of my brain to remind myself not everything here is a threat, particularly outside the four walls of the hotel room – and by that time, I'm awake again.

So dragging myself into the C-Sec office at 6am didn't feel great the first time. Seeing all the other new detective recruits, looking fresh-faced, or at least what I assume a 'fresh-faced' turian is, as we lined up for the initial induction. Cauvan Revus, C-Sec head of recruitment, took us through the programme of classes – twelve hour days, a mix of classroom and applied learning, starting out predominantly theoretical and moving more towards application as the course continued.

Investigative techniques, studies into alien culture and subculture, demographic studies into the Citadel and its changing populace, tech modules into data analysis in the field via omni-tool, hacking and offensive tech modules for use against synthetic hostiles, basic self-defence training, shooting. The crux of the training and teaching was around improving our critical thinking, making connections between data points and evidence, but all this required context around the nature of the Citadel and the people that make it up – the same reason why detectives need to learn to protect themselves. Each module was assessed on an ongoing basis, with tests at the end of each month, before a final examination across all areas at the end of the six months.

From there, we got a tour of the C-Sec buildings and facilities, and met some of the detectives – though Garrus was absent because of that red sand investigation he'd mentioned. It felt like a bit of a kick in the teeth, and while none of the new recruits or staff were outwardly hostile, nobody came forward as particularly friendly as well. I assumed most expected me to quit – I was being assessed alongside turians, after all, many of whom had completed some level of military service.

It showed, too. The practical side was a nightmare – the other recruits could consistently outshoot, outmanoeuvre, and outfight me. Sparring sessions ended up with me on my ass, gym sessions were an embarrassment, and my shooting left a fair bit to be desired; but I, at least, had the advantage on the theoretical side. With no real friends on the Citadel, and the lingering fear of what would happen to me if I failed the course, I threw myself into my studies – not the most healthy motivation, but I've been coming out near or top of the class in the modules that rely less on physical prowess. Likely the only reason my continued enrolment into the course was tolerated. But as time went on, confidence grew; while I was still a little behind, I was at least starting to shoot better, keep up in the gym, and be less of a pushover on the sparring mats.

With the pay, I managed to move out of the hotel Shai'ira paid for, and find my own place a lot closer to the office; and while the asari mostly kept to herself, I at least got the occasional message checking in, or helping with the more baffling parts of some of the culture studies. Not that she ever talked much about herself or her motivations – but having someone to occasionally talk to about my situation helped keep me sane, even if she wasn't budging on getting me out unless I toed the line.

Between going to C-Sec and going home to study, there's not been that much time to really integrate with life on the Citadel; which I supposed wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It'stopped me from being overwhelmed, gave me time to at least try and process what I'd left behind. I could only hope time moved differently between universes, because otherwise...well, I didn't like to think about what my parents must feel, what my friends must. I still don't. Just vanishing like this. But if I don't do this, I won't ever be able to make it back to them. I can work out how the hell to explain all this once I've crossed that bridge.

The only exception to this regular training routine was the fourth month. While we were still expected to maintain our theoretical studies, and keep ourselves fresh in the range and with our technical skills, month four was about meeting and working with your future partner – in my case, in contraband, with Garrus.

That fourth month is where things got a lot more interesting.

* * *

I screw up my face in a disgusted expression as Garrus swivels the image on his terminal monitor towards me. Even with our differences in facial structure, the turian obviously recognises it, given the flanging chuckle slipping out of his mouth, mandibles flexed slightly.

"Christ, did you have to start me off with that?" I ask. "You're lucky we looked at things like this in the training, or I'd be throwing up all over your desk." The image in question is identifiable as a human, but it's initially hard to tell with all the viscera – on account of him being cut open, and all the organs being missing. Still makes me feel queasy, though Garrus seems to have no such qualms; though I imagine if it were a turian, it would change how he feels about it. Bit easier to compartmentalise when it's not your own species on the screen.

"Sorry," Garrus says, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I'd been planning to work on some of the smaller cases with you, but this is going to be our priority case for now. Do you need a moment?" To be fair to Garrus, we've not seen a lot of each other while I've been training, given that I've not had much spare time – but he was waiting in the office foyer this morning to come and pick me up, doing his best to come off as friendly, talking about his own experience with training and making a few jokes at some of the instructors' expense.

Then he showed me this once we were sat down properly.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Just...ugh. When did they find him?"

"Only about an hour ago. Down on Tayseri Ward, a salarian civilian found him lying in an alley while on regular patrol. C-Sec presence isn't too high there, and whoever did this..." Garrus clicks his mandibles. "They didn't seem worried about subtlety. Any initial thoughts?" Not much time for any gentle settling in, then, let's see...

"Well, I'm guessing this is ours because of the organs, or the lack thereof?" I ask, getting myself together a little more and pointing over at the screen. This month is assessed, just like all the others – by Garrus, this time. At least he seems ready to let me demonstrate I've learned _something_ in the past three months. "I read up on the black market organ trade, some of the previous murders in the lower wards. Whoever did this really went all in on getting as much out of their victim as they could. Can't have done that in a hurry, not with the precision to remove organs properly. How long were they dead before getting discovered?"

"About three hours," Garrus nods, looking satisfied with that as a starting point. "And you're right, it's not a quick process to strip the organs. Anything else seem unusual?" His eyes glance back over to me; there's no pressured stare, just a curiosity, to see how much I want to string this along. It's a little less intense in mannerism than the instructors, but, well...it's Garrus. Even with everything else going on, there's still that little part of me that is legitimately extremely excited about being with him in the flesh, getting to talk to him – which also means feeling a huge amount of pressure not to disappoint someone I know so much about, that I already like so much. Also means I have to remind myself not to get too familiar with him yet, giving that we've only just started working together properly.

"Uh..." I tap my chin for a few seconds, before perking up. "Do we know what killed the guy? I'm assuming a homicide team responded first before it got landed with us."

There's another faint hint of a smile on Garrus' face there as he nods. Obviously I must be scoring _some_ points with the insight here. "Precise incision to the throat. A deep one, and no sign of a struggle beyond some tensed muscle. The killer would have wanted to avoid damaging the organs as much as possible, after all."

"Right. So they must have caught the victim by surprise, cut their throat open without a struggle, which can't have been easy, and then...why open up the body at the crime scene like that? That's what confuses me," I frown. "Couldn't they have taken them off somewhere else? Where they're less likely to get discovered?" I glance back up at Garrus. "Am I thinking along the right lines here?"

He gives a chuckle at that, leaning back in his seat with a proper smile this time. "I know they teach it differently in the classroom, but your theories don't all need to be correct first time. Do you think I'm going to mark you down if you don't crack the case from seeing one image?"

I give him a slightly panicked look as I try to work out whether or not he's reprimanding me. "No?"

"Exactly. So you don't have to be as rigid as they teach you in the academy, Shaw. Good detectives adapt their ideas," the turian smirks, giving me a nudge on the arm. "If it makes you feel better, you're approaching this similarly to how I did. I wondered why they wouldn't move the body too, which is why it's always important to understand not just what you're looking at..." His hand drifts over to the holographic keyboard, and a quick switch to a new window shows a slightly zoomed in Citadel map. "But where, too." As much of a knack for dramatic timing as I remember. "Do you know Tayseri Ward?"

"Err...not really. Should I?"

"It's a business area, so I doubt it. Not exactly a high class one, either. The Citadel never had much need for industrial work, not with the costs involved operating out of a lone space station in Council space with no natural resource, even one this big, so a lot of the property there is unused. There's been plans to improve it for a couple of years now, but, you know how it can be with the Council. The credits end up on another fountain for the Presidium."

"Have to keep it nice and pretty where the decision makers work, right?" I ask, getting a little snort out of Garrus. That's a win, at least! Feels a bit free taking cheap shots at bureaucracy, but I know I'm playing to a good crowd for it. "So who's ever down there these days?"

"You get a few pop-up shops, a couple of cheap apartment buildings, but until they find buyers for the industrial buildings..." Garrus shrugs. "Not much. It also means C-Sec doesn't have a lot of surveillance coverage down there, and not many patrols either. The victim was found inside one of the old factories, so the killer mustn't have been expecting to have been discovered."

"Perfect spot to murder someone away from prying eyes, and probably less risky than dragging a corpse through the streets, so long as you know a quiet spot. Why not hide the body better?"

"Sounds like he got disturbed before he could. You can ask the salarian that discovered him. They're still keeping him at the scene for questioning, and we get to talk to him." Garrus moves up to his feet, shutting off the terminal screen. "That's everything we're going to work out by looking at a picture. We can talk about any other questions you have on the way. Ready for your first real crime scene?"

I'd only just started getting comfortable in the chair, but if he's keen to get me out and into the field, suppose I can't give any complaints. Getting to do detective work, with the _real_ Garrus, it's...I mean, with how tough all the training has been, what it's been like trying to adapt to life on the Citadel, this is the first time it's felt genuinely worthwhile. That I've not just been indulging Shai'ira to get myself home. This is legitimately exciting. "Guess so. Can't say I'm not going to have an exciting month here, huh?"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up. We don't normally get murders to look into. Most of the time there's just some small-time smugglers from the Terminus who feel like trying to make it big on the Citadel," Garrus chuckles. "But I suppose it's good to have you starting off on a more memorable case. Might mean you actually get to use half of what they're supposed to be teaching you."

"Well, you went through it the training too, right? You don't use what you got taught?" I ask, quirking a brow as we head through the office, towards the elevators leading down throughout the building – including down to the vehicle pool.

"Some of it. The Citadel works a bit differently in practice to what you get told in classes, though," the turian explains. "Teaching recruits every single regulation in the C-Sec book is fine, as long as you don't forget that good detectives need to be able to adapt on the case."

We step into the elevator, my eyes shifting over to Garrus as the doors start to slide shut. It's just the two of us – still quite early for most C-Sec staff, after all. "You're saying I shouldn't worry about the regulations too much?" I can see the slight pause as his mouth opens, presumably trying to work out how to phrase an answer that isn't just a blatant 'no'. This is more like the Garrus I'm familiar with the games – not like he's ever had a great deal of patience for that sort of thing getting in the way. Bit difficult to balance that against him being a 'role model' for me in this month, though.

"You should worry about them because your exams need you to. For now," he finally explains, flexing his talons a little. The elevators really are as slow as in-game, notably. I'd taken them as masked loading screens, but it turns out in reality, the C-Sec building has a _lot_ of layers. "And I'm not saying you should break them either. You just learn which ones are more important than the others."

"Right. You going to teach me which ones those are?" I ask, shooting him a grin. May as well try getting pally if we're working together, and I'm not a complete stickler for the rules. "Don't want to step on your toes."

"If you're as sharp as they say you are, you'll work them out fine yourself," the turian replies. Most of the other turians would make that sound sarcastic, but there's less malice with Garrus, even if his expression remains unchanged.

"Not worried about a human getting in your way?"

"Should I be?" I can see some of the plates above his eyes shift into what I've learned is an inquisitive expression, as the doors slide open to reveal the vehicle bays. "You're a little too small to block my line of sight."

He's out the elevator before I can think up a good enough retort, just hurrying after that longer stride once he's heading towards our cruiser. There really is quite a size difference – I'm only five foot seven, after all, while turians...well, they're a fair bit larger on average. "Hey, c'mon, you know what I mean. Not a secret most people aren't thrilled about me being here, I just want to make sure we're on the same page."

Our cruiser is one of the ones parked up nearest the lift, and Garrus shrugs as he pops open the door. "Pallin likes his little clique down here. He made it sound like you were going to be completely incompetent, but from what I've seen from some of your module reports..." He settles into the driver's seat, as I clamber into the passenger side. "I'm open to being surprised. If just for the look on Pallin's face if you graduate, of course."

"Right, course," I chuckle, settling back a little bit. He's not said much there, but it means a lot that he's at least willing to be a little open minded about things. "Thanks."

"Doesn't mean I'll give you an easy time with your assessment. I still want to see what you can do if we're going to be working together full time," Garrus points out. "Don't start relaxing too much."

Right. I can already feel myself lowering my guard about him a bit, which is bad when we've only been working together properly since this morning. Just because I know _about_ him extremely well, doesn't mean we know each other as colleagues or friends. But I've got a good feeling about it, and they've been in quite short supply ever since I arrived here. "Got it. Not relaxing, don't worry. You're not the only one who wants to see the look on Pallin's face."

"Good," the turian smirks, starting the engine as the cruiser slowly starts to take off. I glance over at him, flexing my hands slightly in the seat. After three months buried in books and getting knocked on my ass by turians, time to show everyone what I can do. Time to start looking out for myself.

Even though I'm still alone out here, having that purpose is at least something to cling onto. If Shai'ira is right, if getting close to Shepard and guiding events is what can save this galaxy...then this is where it all starts.

Detective Shaw on the case. Bring it on.

 **A/N: Blame Dylan I guess.**

 **No commitment to update scheduling or anything, given how that's worked in the past, but I'm still kicking at least.**


	6. Ian vs The First Case

Chapter 6

Once we touch down by the crime scene in Tayseri Ward, we're greeted by one of the junior detectives from homicide; one of the other turians from my training course, Valen. He doesn't really give me the time of day, but spends _plenty_ of time trying to impress Garrus by rattling off the facts that we have so far – the dead guy is named Anthony Levi, moved to the Citadel just over a year and a half ago, working as a low-level clerk at the human embassy up on the Presidium. He's actually a resident of Tayseri Ward, which says a lot about how the embassy is paying its staff – though it's not abundantly clear why he would be hanging out in an abandoned factory's warehouse at the time of his death.

The warehouse itself isn't much; the place used to belong to a vehicle manufacturer, but any stock and storage areas got cleared out of the main body of it a while back, presumably. It's just a large, open space, with some securely sealed doors leading into what I can only assume used to be office space, the windows now firmly sealed up too. If anyone wanted to carry out surgery, and they had their own tools, this would definitely be a fine spot for it – nothing to get in the way, nice abandoned space, nobody else really around, aside from this salarian witness we need to check in with.

Garrus rather quickly thanked him once we arrived at the small tent set up to cover the body, but not before Valen shot me a bit of a harsh look as he went past – obviously not too impressed that I'm getting to work on a case like this, rather than him.

I flash him a sarcastic grin all the same. Cry me a river.

Still, my stomach does another flip once I peek inside of the tent, instinctively gagging at the first glance at the corpse. "Really doesn't look any better up close, does it?" I ask Garrus, who's having a bit of a hard time himself looking at the corpse. They've at least manage to get some of the smell to dissipate, but nothing prepares you for just what it's like; doesn't matter how much you try and cover it, the stench of an open body isn't something that just disappears, especially when you have to preserve a crime scene, and I'm grateful to have skipped breakfast. Seeing a body so expertly operated on, and then just left there, is...well, hard to put into words. Disturbing, if I had to put it into words. Still, not going to help anyone if I just stand here and ruminate over it – if I've made it two hundred years into the future without going insane, this is just something else I can handle on top of it. "It's still hard to believe things like this happen on the Citadel. You'd expect it on places like Omega, but not here."

"Every city has its murderers and psychos. They just don't have to worry about hiding on Omega," Garrus tells me. Give it a few years and you'll be getting a first hand experience, buddy. "Still, I know what you mean. People doing things like this for the credits...it's gone much further than I'd thought. Every time we shut down a lab producing organs, another one seems to spring up somewhere else, and they get better at looking legitimate. And then you get incidents like this."

"Labs? I know it's legal to mass produce for medical purposes, but isn't that a bit obvious?" I ask, as we duck back out of the tent. A rather vexed looking salarian is stood outside of the C-Sec cordon with a couple of officers, so presumably that's the witness we're here to talk to. Definitely doesn't look too happy at being held up here for a couple of hours. "Surely you can't run an operation like that without people noticing."

"You can't. It takes a lot of manpower, materials, qualified experts. You can't just start mass producing organs without some kind of medical knowledge," he nods. "A lot of these places open legitimately, get proper licenses, but not all of what they produced goes to hospitals and medical facilities. Stock goes missing, ends up in the black market. They've been getting a lot smarter about hiding when that happens, though."

"So how do you catch them?"

"Looking at materials coming in to these places, any alerts about hospitals losing deliveries, making sure what they're delivering matches up with the supplies they import into the Citadel," Garrus explains, sounding less than enthused.

"Doesn't sound like that involves a lot of fieldwork."

"It doesn't," Garrus chuckles. "The analysts do all the work on that."

"And they just let you know when they need some heads cracked together?"

"Something like that," the turian grins. Somehow didn't expect he'd be too keen on the slower, analytical side of the work. "The better we get at cracking down on illegal labs, though, the more you have people turning to alternative means. Can't say I've seen a lot of corpses like this yet, but if we don't solve this..."

"Right. If people don't think C-Sec are on top of this, we could be seeing a few more similar cases," I nod, shuddering at the thought. You never really get a glimpse at the Citadel's criminal underbelly in the games, beyond some fairly low-key stuff with Fist and Chora's Den, but this is...well, _dark._ If oddly familiar. I remember that Dr. Saleon guy was involved in the organ trade, but that's not until just before Mass Effect 1 begins, so this is something different.

If I just could put my finger on what…

"Exactly," Garrus nods, before stepping through the police cordon. It's all holographic, after all – the display turns red and sets off a little alarm if it doesn't detect relevant C-Sec clearance, so we can walk through with no problems. The salarian, to his credit, seems to instantly clock that Garrus & I aren't regular officers, given that he instantly starts making a fuss.

"Are these the two you were telling me about?" he snaps at the human officer stood next to him, who, for reasons becoming rapidly apparent, looks ready to snap the salarian's neck. "Can we get this over with? I can't be expected to stay here for this long, it's absurd. I report this crime, you treat me like a criminal-"

Garrus clears his throat as he steps up to the pair of them. "Sir, I'm Detective Vakarian, this is Detective Shaw." Still feels weird being introduced as that, but I'm glad he didn't introduce me as the work experience kid at least. "We just need to ask you a few questions, then you can be on your way."

"I already told your _colleague_ everything. I wouldn't have bothered calling this in to be treated like this!" the salarian protests, as the human officer gives me an exasperated roll of his eyes and moves off to guard the perimeter. "What more can I add? I was out here walking when I heard strange sounds coming from the abandoned factory, some movement. I assumed it might be some drunks, or some vagrants, so I went in to look, and I saw...well, you've seen it yourself now, I imagine. With a large figure crouched over him."

"How large?" I ask. That can presumably start narrowing down suspects, if we can get an idea of physiology. "What're we talking, krogan size?"

"Maybe? Possibly bigger? It was dark, and I panicked when I saw the corpse. I ran back outside, called C-Sec, and waited for someone to arrive. How many more times must I repeat myself to C-Sec officers?"

I can't really chastise him for being an asshole, but something about what he's said sits a bit funny, and Garrus is already seizing on it before I really have a chance to gather my thoughts. "So you live down here?" the turian asks.

The salarian gives a fairly rapid blink at the question, pausing for half a second before shaking his head. "No, I live further up. Aveia Ward."

"So, you were down here in the early hours of the morning for...what, exactly?"

"Is that important?" That snippy tone is back in full force. "If I wasn't here, would anyone have found that body?"

"If there was no good reason for you to be near a crime scene at the time someone was murdered..." Garrus lets that hang in the air for a few seconds. I hadn't immediately twigged on this, but he makes a good point – and he's doing a rather impressive job of putting the screws on this salarian. We get taught basic interrogation techniques in the academy, how to spot holes in testimony, but he's doing this like second nature. "I'd say that's quite important."

"Okay, okay. I was going to work," the salarian replies quickly, tone seeming to shift rapidly when he realises what Garrus is getting at. "If you're implying I could be involved-"

"I'm not implying anything. Where's your workplace?"

"One of the shops around here."

"One of? Which one?" The salarian looks like he's struggling to dredge up a name. "Who's your manager? What are your hours? How long have you worked there?"

The silence speaks volumes, as Garrus looks back at me, presumably as some kind of prompt to step in if I feel it's appropriate. May as well prove I can handle things like this too…

"Look, if you can give us something that rules you out as a suspect, it means we don't have to drag you back to C-Sec and draw this out further," I explain, trying to sound helpful. Does good cop, bad cop actually work? I guess this is a good time to find out. "Why were you really here?" He's obviously hiding _something,_ it's just whether or not that something is an involvement with the murder.

The salarian curses quietly under his breath, glancing between Garrus and I helplessly before sighing. "Alright, fine. I came down here last night to try and scavenge. I'd heard all the factories around here got picked clean a while ago, but figured I'd check to see if anyone missed anything. There's good credits in salvage."

"Really?" Garrus asks, eyes narrowing. "And you expect us to believe that, after everything you just tried?"

"No, I can prove it! Look!" He reaches back into his satchel, slowly withdrawing what it takes me a few seconds to recognise as a mass condenser, which I quickly start thumbing through once he hands it over. True enough, a fair bit of salvage that he's condensed down for later – presumably to sell to some of the less reputable scrap dealers on the Citadel.

"That does check out," I finally nod, glancing back over to Garrus. "So you were walking around, stealing scrap, and then what?"

"It's an abandoned building, it's not _stealing._ Nobody else needs that stuff..." He trails off again under the withering look he's getting from both of us. "Okay, I was working, checking out some of the side rooms and assembly lines that aren't blocked off. As I said, I'd heard that people came here a year ago and picked the place clean. I tried to get into some of the old office spaces and raid them, but whenever they closed the building, they sealed that off with some serious high grade locks. Not just the kind of thing you can hack into, but I thought I could check it out anyway and see if there was any scrap that got looked over-"

Garrus lets out what sounds rather a lot like a frustrated growl. "Just get to the point."

The salarian straightens up a little, now that 'bad cop' is back into play. "I heard some noises coming from the warehouse direction. Just some shouting, only for a second, usual noises in a place like this at that time of the night. Anyway, I finish up in the other parts a couple of hours later, can't get into any doors, go to check out the warehouse, and then I see the body and that figure over him. He looked up and saw me, I know he did, so I ran back outside as fast as I could to hide and call C-Sec."

"So if you were trespassing in here and wanted to hide it, why hang around for us to show up?" I ask, frowning.

"I was hiding from the killer! I didn't want to try and flee into the streets in case he came after me, I just...hid until I heard the sirens, and then came out to talk to your officers." He narrows those wide, beady eyes at me, folding his arms. "I wanted to tell someone what I'd seen."

"Sure, just as long as you made a story that exonerated yourself too. That's very noble," I say, rolling my eyes. Still, what he was saying makes more sense, especially with the evidence from the mass condenser. Some elements of it still seem weird, though. The shouting back from the warehouse isn't completely consistent with the evidence that the victim was killed without a struggle, after all – the incision to the neck is too precise for that. I glance to Garrus. "Any other questions?"

"You didn't get a good look at the killer? Any details at all?" Garrus asks.

"Like I said, it was dark, and I didn't stay long. He was big, though, hunched over. I can't say for sure what species, I just got a quick look before I ran. The body and all the blood took most of my attention." He shudders, presumably remembering the sight. Must have been even more grisly than what we've seen, so I can at least sympathise.

"And the victim? You didn't recognise him?"

The salarian shakes his head. "No. I know some of the other scavengers, but I've never seen a human down in the factories before." He pauses, looking back at me. "So...am I clear to go, now?"

Garrus looks over to me expectantly. Shit, I get to make the call? Going off Citadel law, trespassing and scavenging on abandoned property is still technically a crime – the land still belongs to the Citadel, after all, so trespassing and theft could land the salarian in court and with a pretty hefty fine. That said, we wouldn't have information on the killer without him; and elements of his statement feel like they could be important. He didn't _have_ to stick around, after all.

"Consider this an official verbal caution for your record," I finally say, making a note on my omni-tool of his details, to book that in once we're back. "And I'm confiscating this mass condenser. Abandoned or not, you can't trespass and take materials, plus it's dangerous. Not just for reasons like this." I gesture back towards the tent with the corpse in. "That clear? You get caught doing this again, and you'll get taken in, okay?"

The salarian definitely looks pissed about losing his mass condenser, but he's not about to push his luck. He must know he's getting let off a bit easier here – playing this completely by the book, I should probably have taken him back to the station. "I understand. After this, I won't be going anywhere near one of these places again."

"Make sure you don't," Garrus mutters to him, fixing the salarian with a stern stare as he nods rapidly, before rather swiftly gathering himself and heading away from the crime scene, back towards the residential area of the Ward. The turian fixes me with a look, mandibles stretching into a smile. "Letting him go?"

"I mean, not exactly. He stills get a caution on his record, and these," I say, gesturing to the mass condenser. "Aren't exactly cheap. Why, think I should have cuffed him?"

"If I thought that, I wouldn't have let him walk away," Garrus chuckles. "You did the right thing. Dragging him in for trespassing wouldn't help us solve this case any faster. Just don't get too nice with people." That's a relief, though I didn't anticipate he'd be too antsy over not playing exactly to the book, all things considered.

"I'll try not to. I was about ready to take him at face value when he started talking, honestly," I admit. "I guess you get an instinct for when people are lying, huh?"

"It's usually the irritated ones. If they're getting defensive without even accusing them of something, well. You can start drawing conclusions."

We start heading back towards the warehouse crime scene. By now, we've got more forensics staff on the scene – while they'd initially started by just checking the body, we've got more people available to start sweeping the rest of the factory, presumably including the locked off areas that the salarian scavenger mentioned. There's still room for us to head in and look around, but it's good to see the place getting a proper look through by the experts.

"Interesting that he talked about a shout, though," Garrus comments.

"I was thinking that too," I nod. "From what they were saying, there's not signs of a struggle, just the tensed up muscles. Which might just be the rigor mortis? Maybe it was just someone shouting from elsewhere in the Ward?"

"The shout lines up too well with the time of death," Garrus mutters. "You don't get many stealthy krogan either, if he was right about the species. That, and it doesn't sound like the victim was a regular scavenger."

"I mean, first time for everything, but it does seem a bit weird for an embassy clerk to come down into the factories, even if he lives nearby," I admit. "So, enough time to shout, but not enough to struggle. From the sounds of it our murderer was at least krogan sized, and it seems unlikely he got snuck up on, so...maybe he got lured down here?" Something about this does feel bitingly familiar, but I still can't quite place what it is. "Let's try and play it out." Garrus fixes me with a curious look, eye squinting beneath the blue display of his visor.

"You want me to roleplay murdering you?"

"Could you not sound so enthusiastic about that?" I ask, trying to visualise the space around me. "Just head over to the entrance so we can space this out and think it through from what we know. So, Anthony would have been stood about where I was, here. You enter-" I turn around to face Garrus. "And he could have turned around to see his killer. That would give him enough time to shout, but doesn't give you a lot of time to get close and slit his throat without a struggle, does it?"

"I've not slit many throats, but it does seem unlikely," Garrus nods.

"So he might have shouted, but then didn't resist at all when the assailant closed the distance and stabbed him. Frozen in place, almost," I murmur. What am I missing here? "But that still wouldn't allow a wound that precise, right?"

Garrus pauses, before the turian's eyes light up, immediately flicking open his omni-tool and sweeping it around in a scan of the warehouse interior. I fold my arms, slightly miffed that he seems to have worked something out before I have. "Had a bright idea?"

"What you said about being frozen. It's possible. Takes a powerful biotic to do it, but they could have put the victim into-"

"Stasis." We both say it at the same time, just as Garrus' scan for traces of eezo flag a positive trace within the warehouse's interior. "Put him into stasis, killed him with the incision to the throat, and then carried out the surgery. That would explain the tensed muscle, why there was a shout but no signs of a struggle. The victim never even got a chance to move beyond that first yell."

"Exactly," Garrus nods, looking back up and around the warehouse. "So they must have finished cutting him open and extracting the organs, then got interrupted by the salarian and ran before they could hide the body."

"Yeah, but they must have planned to hide it somewhere nearby, right? Where were they going to hide a corpse in an open space like this-"

My attention is snapped back to corner of the room by the distinctive sound of retching – the human officer who was previously stood guarding the cordon is now staggering away from the previously sealed door into the office space that I'd clocked when I entered the warehouse. There's a couple of grim-faced asari forensics officers looking back over to Garrus & I.

"Detectives? I think you should come and take a look at it."

I exchange a look with Garrus, but quickly hurry over. For forensics officers to have expressions like that, it can't be anything good.

As it turns out, it's not.

I take one look, then I'm recoiling in much the same way as the human officer from before, barely able to hold back on throwing up before I can get clear of the crime scene.

"Well," I can hear Garrus mutter from behind me. "I guess that answers your question."

They show us a lot of things in training to try and steel you for things like this, but nothing comes close to the sight, or smell, of a sealed office space, and the stench of five carcasses piled up inside of it. Two humans, a turian, salarian, even what I think was a quarian, from the fleeting look I got before hurrying out.

The killer has used this place before – off the grid, with nobody batting an eyelid at who comes and goes, supposedly already picked clean by scavengers a year ago - and the evidence hidden in a sealed room scavengers certainly wouldn't have the tech to open up.

With that many bodies in the same place, what the salarian mentioned about the size of the killer, the organs being removed...that lingering feeling of familiarity that's been sitting with me as soon as we arrived finally clicks together, even with my head still spinning.

* * *

 _I can picture the scene. Sat at home on my couch, legs hooked over the edge, watching Shepard and Garrus talk next to the Mako on my TV._

" _I was tasked with tracking black-market trade on the Citadel," he says. "Most of it harmless, nothing I needed to pursue. But during the course of my investigation, I noticed an increase in the trade of body parts. Organs, mostly. We usually get a few of those, but not the numbers I was seeing. We weren't sure if there was a new black market lab, or if some freak was harvesting organs from citizens."_

 _Shepard gives him an odd look of confusion. "You've seen this before on the Citadel?_

 _Garrus nods. "Every so often, some lab sells unwanted parts through the black market. But they're not as bad as the psychos. I remember this one elcor diplomat we caught on the job. He was hacking people up and selling their organs. Had the station in a bit of a panic."_

* * *

One corpse wouldn't be enough to get the station in a panic, but finding six at once?

That might do the trick.


	7. Ian vs The Theory

Chapter 7

"How're you feeling?"

I glance up as Garrus takes a seat next to me, perched on the edge of our cruiser's passenger seat with my legs hanging out the edge. After seeing the murderer's...I don't even know what to call it. His corpse room? Regardless, I've not been able to quite clear the sight or smell out of my head, though at least the nausea is starting to subside. Hard to completely get rid of the shakes, though. Wouldn't be pleasant seeing five dead people at any time, but corpses cut open, organs extracted, like some hollow mannequins…

"I'm fine. Ish. I'll be alright, just a bit of a shock is all. Some first day this is turning out to be, huh?" I ask, managing to muster up a smile. "Not exactly what I'd had in mind."

"Yeahhhh." Garrus really drawls that one out. "Sorry. This really doesn't happen very often."

"You mean you don't find six dismembered corpses every other day?" I have enough humour left after that to quirk a brow at him. The turian gives a chuckle himself, reaching out a hand to pass me a water bottle.

"Not quite. Every other week, maybe."

I snort out a laugh at that, taking the water gratefully. "This isn't some dextro thing, right?"

"No, it's not. One of the other humans thought you were looking a bit pale and had it spare," Garrus explained, shifting his weight to lean against the side of the cruiser. "Forensics are having a proper look around now, I thought I'd give them some space. Check how you were doing."

Aww. He cares. "Thanks, Garrus," I smile, taking a sip. Helps clear up some of the sickly sensation still lingering. "Is Pallin on his way?"

"Yeah. I'm sure he wants to try and get ahead of this before the media show up," the turian sighs. "Not that it'll take long. I'm sure at least one officer already mentioned it to one of the outlets, and it's not like we can keep something like this quiet for long. Pallin's going to want this solved quick, or we're going to have-"

"A station wide panic, right. I figured he might want to get involved with that in the background," I nod, that conversation with Garrus and Shepard playing over in my mind. An elcor serial killer – and a biotic, from the looks of things. Hard to believe, but I suppose it makes that particular story a bit more believable; it's even harder to imagine an elcor making a particularly good job of being a serial killer without _some_ kind of unusual ability. Now I just have to get this investigation pointed towards an elcor diplomat – and make it believable at the same time. Not like I even have much authority coming up with suggestions, given that this is literally my first day out in the field, which isn't going to help either. "Did they at least get an ID on any of the bodies yet? Just from quick DNA and facial scans?"

"Yeah. There's a mix. Three of the five were missing people reports from the past week. Of the other two, the quarian was homeless, so nobody reported him missing – we know he came to the Citadel about five months ago, not much other than that yet. And the other human came to the Citadel alone, ten days ago. He was registered to start working at one of the stores up by the Presidium this week, but nobody even reported him as missing when he didn't turn up."

I take a few moments to start digesting all of that, mulling over any commonalities that might show up. Anything that can be used to start making connections back to the elcor embassy, however tenuous. "Who reported the three missing?"

"The turian and salarian? Workplace colleagues," Garrus explains. "The human, one of her friends. They were all missing for three or four days before anyone reported them missing. All lived alone, so people only got concerned when they didn't turn up for work after days off, or missed social appointments." He runs a gloved hand over the top of his fringe as he pauses, looking back down at me. "All lived alone, all moved to the Citadel recently from other planets, all worked low paid jobs."

"And it sounds like all of them went missing in the last week. Killer isn't wasting any time, are they?" I ask, shuddering. Really wasn't exaggerating about a psycho, here. I can't help the slightly harrowing thought that, going off what Garrus has said, I fit the description of the kind of person this elcor would be targeting rather well, beyond the low paid part. "Feels like everyone was picked out specifically."

"That's what I was thinking. I can't see any reason why they'd all be visiting an abandoned factory down here, either," the turian nods. "They must have been lured here by something."

"Well, that implies someone trustworthy doing the luring, right?" I point out, trying to start steering the theories where I want them to go. "Can't imagine anyone would want to just hang out around here because they think it's fun. Maybe the killer tricked their victims down here by offering money?"

Garrus shakes his head. "They weren't earning much, but that's still assuming quite a lot of naivety, to turn up at an abandoned factory with someone they'd never met, just for money. Especially a krogan, if what that salarian said about what he saw is accurate."

"Might not be a krogan," I point out. Here's my opportunity – come at things from a new angle, see if that can't help Garrus along to the right solution. It does almost feel like cheating, in a way, but after seeing those bodies, it's a bit easier to appreciate that this isn't a game; this is really happening. There's lives I could potentially save by speeding this investigation along a bit. Something this small can't really affect anything canonical, surely? Garrus solved this case in the version of events I know, after all. "What if it was a different species? An elcor?"

Garrus fixes me with a look there, and it's not a particularly impressed one. "An elcor? Murdering people?" Well, never anticipated that this was going to be a particularly easy sell…

"The way you reacted, that's exactly the point, though," I say, clicking my fingers. "Who the hell would ever _think_ an elcor is going to murder them? Not like they're easy to read, is it? Unless they said 'murderously: come with me to this abandoned factory', it's not like they've got a tone or expression that's easy to read. Good liars, definitely non-threatening."

The turian pauses for a second there, but he does at least nod his head after a bit of thought. "That's true. Biotics would let an elcor kill without needing to rely on agility or brute strength. What's the connection to the victims, though?"

I give a helpless shrug. Still, at least this is a start, right? "You've got me there. But biotics have to register when they enter the Citadel, right? The elcor population is pretty large, but once you cut that by biotics, must shrink the list a bit?"

The turian nods again, though he does still seem a bit cautious about it. "I don't think we should rule anything else out, but you're right. It's worth us looking into." Score! "We still need to work out what lured people down here to begin with, though. Ask around at workplaces, check their correspondences..."

"A lot of interviewing, basically."

"Basically." Garrus stretches his mandibles in a smile again, just as the sound of an engine has us both looking up, at a rather more formal looking cruiser starting to make its descent. Unmarked, but recognisable as C-Sec, given the concealed siren system exposed and pulsing above us. "And here's the Executor."

"Lovely. I'm sure he'll be a real bundle of sunshine," I mutter, taking another swig of water and managing to find my feet now. It feels like I'm at least pushing towards the right course, which is nicely reassuring – enough to get some confidence back after seeing the trail this elcor's left. From the looks of things, they'd never been planning on this place getting discovered, and if they were luring people down here, that means there has to be _some_ kind of trail. Just need to find it.

Garrus shoots me a look that seems to imply 'behave', as the two of us approach the cruiser once it touches down, Executor Pallin stepping out with a distinctively dour expression – one that only deepens when he claps eyes on me. Must have forgotten that the trainees all started the month with their partners today.

"Vakarian. _Shaw._ " He's not even trying! "I wasn't sure if you were going to get brought along on a case of this importance."

"Well, we didn't quite realise it was going to be this big when we left this morning," I point out, trying to keep my tone from sounding too scathing, as I see Garrus wince slightly out of my peripheral vision. "Good learning opportunity, though."

"I'm more concerned about keeping the station calm, and assuring the Council that we have the situation under control, than your learning opportunities," Pallin replies tersely, before turning his attention to Garrus. Well, guess that's me out this particular conversation. "It's already being picked up by the news channels, all the extranet sites are running breaking news stories. They're going to start descending on here like a pack of varren at any minute. Tell me we have _something."_

"Traces of element zero, so likely biotics, which should help narrow a suspect list. All the victims moved to the Citadel recently, alone, working low-wage jobs, or unemployed altogether," Garrus explains, seeming happy to get to the point – no doubt what Pallin prefers, given his particular style of working with me thus far. "So far, it looks likely they were lured down here; given their backgrounds, probably by credits. But we won't know for sure until we look deeper into it."

"There was an eyewitness who caught a brief look of the killer, too," I add in. "He said they were big. Possibly krogan size, maybe bigger, like an elcor."

Pallin gives a derisive clack of his mandibles. "Elcor seems unlikely."

"The description was of a 'large' assailant, I don't see why that makes elcor any less likely than a krogan-"

"One of those species is has a predisposition to violence. The other does not. Surely that makes one more likely than the other, don't you think?" Pallin asks. Well, 'asks', in the loosest possible sense of the word.

I'm about to make some kind of ill-thought remark, but Garrus interrupts before I can – probably for the best. "From how confident the killer was keeping the bodies here, they obviously weren't expecting us to piece this together or find them. I doubt they'd be able to cover their tracks that well."

The Executor nods slowly, before sparing another glance at me. "Fine. Just make sure we get something before more corpses like this start appearing. If you want a more senior partner-"

"He's doing fine, Executor," Garrus says firmly. "Thank you."

Pallin still doesn't look impressed, but decides not to make anything of it, particularly as we can see the larger marked vehicles from the various news companies on the Citadel starting to make their descent, with officers all ready and set up to enforce the cordon. "Keep me informed, then." He turns on his heel and marches off towards them – I wait until he's out of earshot to let out the breath I hadn't really appreciated I'd been holding. As much as I dislike Pallin, he's still pretty intimidating.

"You should be careful," Garrus says, turning back to look at me. "It's not much of a secret around the department that Pallin wants to get rid of you."

"I was just saying what the eyewitness told us," I point out. "He can't fire me for that."

"No, but he can for whatever you were planning to say afterwards." Garrus chuckles when I obviously struggle for some kind of protest to voice. "I don't read humans very well, but I recognised the expression you had. Trust me, I feel the same way with Pallin a lot of the time, but it's smarter to let him feel important and just brief him on what we know for sure. _Especially_ in your position."

It's at least relieving to hear that Garrus doesn't think much of Pallin either, not that it's a huge surprise – the Executor's a bit more straight laced, which is something of a personality clash. "Alright, I'll try not to tell him he's an asshole. That means I get to vent with you, though."

The turian laughs, gesturing back to our cruiser – there's not a whole lot more we can do at the crime scene, not until forensics finishes up completely. "Looking forward to it. Pallin has most of the others in the department following his lead, so it's good to have someone to be a little more...open, with."

"You do realise that backing me up is going to put you in his sights too, right?"

I can see the familiar smirk slipping onto Garrus' face – that one he occasionally does in the games, when he's quietly rather proud of something. "Oh, I think I'm there already."

"Meaning?"

"I'll tell you on the way over." he says, opening up his omni-tool to get the cruiser doors to open up for the two of us to clamber inside. "We're going to the Lower Wards."

I give a frown at that. I don't entirely remember anything that pointed us in that kind of direction, so I'm racking my brains for anything that would explain it. "You said we were doing interviews? Did one of them work there?"

"The salarian did, but that's not why I'm heading there first," Garrus explains. "Once you work enough cases in the black market, you start working out informants. I've know a volus who was experimenting on some arms trading on the side from his store, but got a bit deeper than he was expecting. In return for co-operating with the bigger investigation I was doing, I helped pulled him out."

"And you didn't bring him in afterwards?"

"It's the same idea as what you did with the salarian witness earlier. You let some of the little things go so you can make the big cases. It's not exactly regulations..."

"But it makes sense, I gotcha," I nod, grinning. Back home when I was playing the games, I always tried to iron out some of Garrus' more renegade, 'ends justify the means' kind of things, but now that I've sat through a few months of the C-Sec introduction programme and all the regulations, it's hard to concede that he doesn't have at least a _little_ bit of a point. "How long ago was that investigation? Is he still going to be happy to see you?"

"Maybe 'happy' isn't the right word. But he could be a good start," the turian chuckles, starting up the engine. "Once he calms down."

I try not to laugh at the thought of a volus flapping around in a panic as Garrus starts up the engine, opening up my omni-tool to glance through the case notes as he flies. As much as I want to just steer this towards elcor as much as possible, we really should do this properly – the case I'm thinking of might be a different time, after all. Can't imagine Garrus had many cases like this in his time at C-Sec, but I can't know for sure.

We can see what this volus has to say, and then take it from there. The nausea from before is gone – replaced with a keen desire to wipe that dismissive look off Pallin's face. Even if this isn't an elcor, I want to prove that I can do this – regardless of being forced into this job, I'm here now. Working with Garrus. I know that back on Earth, this is the kind of thing I would've loved to have done – and even if the reality isn't quite as glamorous as what I might've fantasised, it's still an opportunity to do something I never could've thought possible in my life back home. Actually make some kind of a difference, in the hub of alien civilisation.

Let's go crack a case.


	8. Ian vs The Volus

Chapter 8

"So, what is it you were saying about being in Pallin's sights already?" I ask, watching the Citadel rush by before us. There's a real sort of juxtaposition between the rundown area we flew out of, and the whitewashed, gleaming surfaces of Council buildings and the Presidium as it passes underneath on the way to the Lower Wards. Cities back on Earth, back in my time, always had that as well – almost a hard border to wealth, and obviously intergalactic society hasn't gone any way to fundamentally changing that aspect of large settlements. "You two don't get along?"

"Not exactly, no," Garrus admits, glancing over at me from the driver's seat – brow plate lowered slightly as he presumably works out how best to phrase this. "Pallin is...'classic' C-Sec. He's been around for a while. He knew my father, actually, always thought highly of him."

"You're from a line of C-Sec officers, then?"

"If you'd call my father and I a 'line', then sure," the turian chuckles. "Father had quite the reputation. Solved plenty of cases, did everything by the book, exactly like Pallin wants – 'do things right, or don't do them at all', that was his mantra. Then I join C-Sec, and don't have quite the same approach my father did. The Executor doesn't have a lot of patience for people bending the rules, so we don't always see eye to eye." He looks over at me again. "Sorry. I know it's your first day, and there's been all this dropped on you. I shouldn't be complaining about our boss on top of it."

I laugh, shaking my head. "It's fine. Pallin's been on my case ever since I joined, it's not like you're really changing my view of him. Just glad I'm not the only one who finds him a bit of a prick." He barely ever mentions his father or family in game – I don't want to pry into it too much, but if we're talking anyway… "Did you join C-Sec because you wanted to follow in your father's footsteps, then?"

Garrus gives a flanged sigh at that, mandibles flexing out ever so slightly in a sign of annoyance; at me or his father, I'm not completely sure. "Not quite."

He leaves it at that, a bit of a heavy silence lingering between us for the next few seconds as I look back out of the window. There's a fine line between prying and getting to know someone better, and while I guess I 'know' Garrus pretty well in terms of what he's going to do and personality, there's a big difference between watching that play out in scripted interactions on a screen, and actually talking to someone in person. "You know," I say, trying to find some common ground. "C-Sec wasn't really my first choice either."

"High profile job for someone who didn't want to do it," the turian observes. Guess he has a point there.

"Hey, I would've been fine doing something lower profile. Then you get fast-tracked like this, shoved into where someone else thinks will suit you best..." I shrug at him helplessly. "Trust me, I'm not trying to be some poster-boy for humanity in C-Sec, far from it. Juts didn't really get much of a say in the matter."

Garrus' expression seems to soften slightly – a look at the navigation display in the cruiser shows we're only a minute away from arriving at this informant's store, but he still looks ready to talk a bit more. "Have you ever heard of the Spectres?"

Ah, now this, I did know about him. Interesting to hear him talk about it naturally, though. "Yeah, kind of. Council agents who deal with the _really_ big problems in the galaxy, above the law, all that stuff. You applied?"

"Sort of. I was only one of the thousand or so candidates they picked out from my time in the turian military, so there's no guarantee I would have ever made it further than that. But my candidacy got blocked, and I'd always been planning on looking into C-Sec after the military, so here I am."

I can imagine just by the implication who blocked that particular decision, but I think I've pushed it enough by now, nodding understandingly. "Least you're still helping people here though, right? Just probably a lot fewer explosions and gunfights."

"Right," Garrus laughs, as he starts to set the cruiser down in one of the parking spots in the Lower Wards. "Hante's shop is a few minutes walk from here, and we've got a few people to see today. Let's go."

"Sounds like a plan," I nod, popping open the cruiser door and stepping out into the bustling shopping district. The Lower Wards aren't anywhere near as bright as the Presidium, but there's still plenty of glaring light sources amongst the dimmer background – advertisements climbing up the huge towers in the distance, cheaper stores awash in a glow of holographic displays hawking their wares, as Garrus and I set off through the streets. It's all quite distracting; less of the orderly shopping experience you get in the wealthier districts, and a lot more crammed together, but the prices seem a hell of a lot lower – lots of independent traders and smaller shops, with plenty of people from all species milling around and looking for deals.

After throwing up earlier, Garrus points me towards some good, non-dextro food places to get some energy back, so by the time we reach 'Hante's Electronics Emporium' I'm just finishing up some burrito kind of thing – it's not abundantly clear what kind of meat is in the filling, given it wasn't a human farmed animal, but it tastes pretty great regardless. The store itself is a bit of a dump – there's a half hearted attempt at a display in the windows outside, but it's just a few omni-tools and terminals scattered around haphazardly. I'm not much of a tech expert, but even I can tell that those omni-tool models are pretty outdated, and the higher shelves are notably rather bare. I guess that makes sense for a volus merchant – not like it's quite as easy to reach up and keep the top shelves well stocked…

"Not exactly the Sirta Foundation, is it?" I ask, glancing over to Garrus, who chuckles and shakes his head.

"It never was. Store presentation isn't Hante's strong point," the turian says, frowning at the storefront as we both peer through to try and make out any volus inside. No customers, but no sign of a shopkeeper either. "Okay. If I go in there first, there's a good chance he's going to make a run for it."

"He's that scared of you? The hell did you do to him the first time you met?"

" _I_ didn't do anything. He just associates me with the black market traders that were out for his head, so he might assume the worst if I come through the door," Garrus points out. "So, you need to go in first. Get him out into the store to show you some of the goods, then I'll come in so he can't get anywhere. Then we'll talk and see if he's heard anything."

"Right. Easy as that, I'm sure," I say a touch sarcastically, getting an eye roll from Garrus for my troubles as I step up to the entrance door, with the turian leaning against the shop's window as he waits. Old fashioned door, too, not one of the omni-tool compatible sliding ones, so I give it a push to open it up, and only get the frame to rattle in response. Shit. Is the store open? Maybe that's why he's not around. I give it another go, with no luck – but at least spot a volus peeking his head out from around the back room, before slowly trundling out and looking at me. I gesture at the door, then shrug in confusion. Maybe it's just outside of opening hours? But it's the middle of the day-

"It's * _click*_ a pull * _click_ * door."

I give it a pull, and the door swings open. Ah. That'll do it, then. Trying not to look too embarrassed with myself, I head inside and give him a friendly smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." There's still the slower method of talking, and the clicking in between words, but having met a few volus in my months on the Citadel, I'm quite used to it by now. "What can I do for you, Earth-clan? I have a wide range of second hand goods for fine prices, if anything takes your interest?"

I would probably contest the 'wide range' point if I was feeling particularly pedantic, but given that I'm supposed to help chill this guy out, I decide against it. "Yeah, I saw a couple of omni-tools on display that might make good gifts, but there's no prices on them. Mind talking me through the specs and how many credits they'd be?" I ask, gesturing towards a display on the wall opposite from where Garrus is waiting outside.

"Of course." The volus starts to waddle over to that particular display, the penguin comparisons uncanny, given his white and black suit. "Which specific items were you thinking about?" With his back turned, I quickly open my omni-tool and send a ping to Garrus', before closing it up and choosing one entirely at random.

"That one. That one looks really interesting," I say, with all the authority of a man with no idea what he's talking about.

I feel like Hante would be frowning if I could see his face, as the volus briefly looks back to me, following my outstretched finger to a pretty haggard looking omni-tool with a few scratches on it. "Right. A good choice," he says, apparently more than happy to play the salesman on top of my apparent ignorance. "Let's see about making a deal-"

We both hear the doorframe rattling at the same time, Hante and I both looking back over to see the shape of a turian outside. "It's a pull door!" we both call, in time for a rather flustered looking Garrus to walk in, glancing back over his shoulder with irritation. Hante, on the other hand, freezes up.

"Garrus?" Time seems to slow as Hante looks to Garrus, then me, the turian's arms folded in an unimpressed expression. The volus suddenly makes a break for it, trying to dash towards the back room on his stubby legs; an escape attempt swiftly ended when I stick out my leg and he goes tumbling over it and down to the ground.

So much for high speed pursuit.

* * *

"So, how's business, Hante?" Garrus asks. We've got the volus sat up on a chair by the display wall, and given the higher frequency of clicks coming from his mask, he's obviously feeling rather apprehensive about us being here, like Garrus predicted. "Glad we didn't interrupt any of your customers."

"Why are you here, Palaven-clan?" Hante demands, presumably trying to sound a little more bold about things than he actually feels. "I already helped you and C-Sec with your weapons investigation, what more can I add?"

"Riiiight. I'm sure you've kept yourself clear of the black market since then. With all the customers in here, you must be making more than enough credits to cope otherwise," Garrus comments sarcastically, getting a huff of annoyance from Hante. "Organ trade. Even if you're not involved in it, someone's been moving a lot of them this past week. You must have heard something?"

"I left the black market behind after the weapons dealing, you know that! I have no intention of getting involved again-" Hante gives a shout of fright as Garrus kicks the chair back up against the wall, closing in and looming over the volus. Well, that didn't take as long as I was expecting; all of Garrus' talk about not caring much for regulations didn't bother me before, when it was talk. Seeing it like this, though, I'm feeling a little tense – so I can only imagine what it's doing for Hante.

"Don't lie to me, Hante. I've been happy keeping off you after how you helped us before, but you need to return the favour," Garrus says, hint of a growl in his voice. "New dealer on the organ market. A name, species, anything you know."

Hante stays quiet again, and I can see one of Garrus' taloned hands curled up. Okay, time to play good cop. "Look, Hante, we're not trying to prosecute you, even if you are still involved in the black market. No offence, but we've got bigger things going on here," I point out to him. "Just help us out and we're done. I don't want to make it any more difficult than it has to be."

Garrus reaches out and places a hand on Hante's shoulder – even with the gloves covering his talons, I can see that his grip is looking rather tight, from how it presses down against the exo-suit. "I don't mind how difficult it gets." Fucking hell, this got dark, really quick. I don't think Garrus would actually hurt him...I mean, I hope not. It's an act, albeit a very convincing one, and it's enough to get Hante to snap, nodding his head frantically.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk! Earth-clan, get him to stop!"

I give Garrus a quick nod, but he's still got his hand dug in for a few seconds more – just as I'm about to go over and pull his hand off, he finally retracts it, taking a step back but not looking particularly remorseful about it. I suppose if we find out what we need to stop this killer, ends justify the means…

Hante spends almost a solid minute clicking and wheezing, presumably as he starts to calm down from that interrogation, but it starts testing my patience a bit. "Hante, you said you'd talk, so come on. Garrus and I are dying to hear it."

"I keep...*wheeze*…black market data, on my terminal..." Hante explains, slipping out of the chair and waddling back over to the counter. "Let me look it up and see if I can help you." I shoot a sideways glance at Garrus, who's looking a little concerned himself – just as a red warning light bathes the shop, and shutters slam down around the windows and door. The hell did he do?

I look up to see a roof panel open up, and what I quickly identify as a security mech drops down and starts to unfold; pistol immediately noticeable in its right hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I can faintly see Garrus dash behind a display cabinet for cover, drawing his pistol – but I'm completely frozen up.

My right hand is going for the pistol at my hip, but it feels sluggish, legs refusing to move as the mech's pistol starts to come up.

Christ, I'm freaking out, come on! I finally get a grip on the weapon, pulling it up and out of the holster, trying to aim just as the robot brings his weapon to a firing position-

And its head explodes in a shower of sparks and scraps. Garrus steps out with his gun still trained on it until the lights flicker and die, before looking over at me and holstering it.

"Ian? There's no more mechs. Lower it."

I faintly realise I've still got my gun up, aimed at the spot where the mech was standing, finally getting my senses back enough to lower and holster the weapon – but my hands are still visibly shaking. I completely froze up there, shit. We've done plenty of weapons training at the academy; hell, I'm a pretty good shot, but as soon as there's a weapon pointed at me for real...fuck.

That's really not great, especially not in front of my partner. "Sorry. I just...I don't even know. I saw the gun and I-"

"It's fine." There's genuine reassurance in Garrus' tone – not the annoyance I was expecting. He looks and sounds pissed off, but I can tell it's not at me; more likely, it's at the volus who it appears just tried to kill us. "Nobody ever knows how they'll react first time in a real situation like that. Are you alright?"

"Shaken up, but no permanent damage." Next time I'll be better prepared. Just the shock of having a weapon drawn on me...ugh. I'll be ready if that ever happens again. I hope. "Thanks." He's probably saved my life, right there; a feeling which I'm not sure is going to sink in for a little while.

"No problem. You're not getting killed by a security mech. That's just embarrassing." Garrus flashes me a brief smile there; knowing that someone legitimately does have my back is a hell of a reassurance too, my hands start to shake a hell of a lot less as I get my breathing back under control. "Now..." We both look back over at the counter, to see Hante peeking out slowly. "He's got some explaining to do."

"Yeah," I nod, breathing out a shaky sigh, and starting to step towards the volus. "Too right he does."

* * *

Garrus has Hante pushed up against the wall, and this time I'm feeling less inclined to help him, given that he literally tried to kill us. Little bastard is definitely getting taken in for that – I've already called in nearby officers to assist and arrest, but this is our best shot at getting info from him quickly, before he's dragged off back to the main precinct.

"I'm _*wheeze*_ sorry! I panicked!" Hante protested. "Please, it's a misunderstanding-"

"Security mechs aren't misunderstandings, Hante," Garrus growls. "And if you don't want to go away for a very, _very_ long time, then talk. Everything you know about black market organ trades in the past week. Now!"

Hante's head strains back over his shoulder to look at me, presumably appealing for help, but I keep my expression flat. He blew his chance, frankly, and the volus knows it.

"Alright, I'll tell you!" Hante practically squeaks, nodding his head. "There's been talk across the market, a new organ supplier – nobody knows where he's getting them from, but he's undercutting all the major labs, so word gets around. Nobody's seen his face, but it doesn't make much of a difference – everyone recognises an elcor when they see one!"

Garrus looks back to me in surprise; I just feel an immense sense of relief that my initial hunch was right. Looks like this really is the elcor case after all. "Why the hell didn't you just tell us that in the first place?" I ask Hante.

"You would have thought I was involved! I didn't want to be arrested, and then with the security mech, I just..." He trails off. He probably did panic and set them on us, but still, that doesn't mean I'm inclined to just let it go.

"Well, bit late for not getting arrested," I sigh. "There's some officers on the way." Garrus has already cuffed him, so we'll just sit tight until they arrive – the turian looks like he's holding himself back from clocking Hante one, but he's showing admirable restraint for now. I'm still getting my breath back from nearly getting shot, too, but knowing that we're narrowing down the suspect list feels pretty good too.

Leaving Hante cuffed to the chair for now, I head over to the turian, flicking open my omni-tool to start pulling a list of biotic elcor. Given how specific a query it is, that only takes a few seconds to come up with a list of names – out of an elcor population of a few hundred thousand, this narrows it down to just twenty-five.

"Closing the net," I mutter to Garrus. "Think Pallin is going to be happy about it looking like an elcor, rather than a krogan? He seemed pretty adamant I was barking up the wrong tree." Garrus looks a bit baffled at that particular expression. "Uh, looking in the wrong place."

"Ah, right. Well, if that's where the evidence is pointing, he doesn't _have_ to like it," the turian points out, opening up his omni-tool. "We still need to talk to the employers and friends of the victims; the tech team are still looking at what they can uncover from mail and extranet accounts, but this definitely narrows down any possibilit-" He pauses mid-sentence, and I can see him opening up a mail notification that appeared.

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah. Pallin's just sent a message." He flicks through his omni-tool; going to the extranet application while he talks. "Two more bodies. Organs removed, Tayseri Ward."

"What? How? We already compromised the killer's spot, they can't have just killed again already," I say, looking to Garrus in shock. "That doesn't make sense..." Christ. If the station wasn't in a panic earlier, they certainly will be now.

"You think that's bad? Here's who found out first." Garrus expands the omni-tool screen as he settles on the extranet site he wants, popping into a full display of the Westerland News channel, reporting live from Tayseri Ward, with the camera crew being ushered behind what looks like a hastily constructed C-Sec cordon.

"That's just out in an alleyway," I mutter. "That's much more open than I was expecting. Maybe the killer just panicked?" Something about it doesn't sit right.

"We won't know until we get there," Garrus sighs. "As soon as those officers get here for Hante, then we need to go. Straight away."

Too right. If the media are crawling all over this straight away, two bodies showing up in broad daylight – or at least, artificial daylight – is going to mean Pallin demanding some answers, and quick.

So much for stopping this before it gets out of hand.


	9. Ian vs The News

Chapter 9

"Westerlund aren't the only ones reporting on this now," I say to Garrus, glancing up from the omni-tool screen as the turian steers us through air traffic; sirens very much on at this point, given the urgency of Pallin's messages. Every single news channel is running it as their headline story; just flying past the Presidium and some of the holographic displays mounted on the sides of the larger buildings and skyscrapers shows the same images – I have no idea what the reporters are saying, but the text spread across the bottom of the screen on every channel covers the gist of it well enough; _'Tayseri Ward Butcher at large', 'Serial killer continues rampage in broad daylight', 'Are you safe? C-Sec refuse to acknoweldge leads on eight connected killings_ …' "It's like they're trying to make everyone panic."

"Nobody tunes in for the good news," he mutters, eyes firmly fixed out the windshield. I don't think he's taking this particularly well, and to be honest, neither am I; it's our case, after all. One murder is bad enough; finding all the bodies this morning, and two more now – it really is getting out of control. When Garrus mentioned a station wide panic in the games, I thought he might've been exaggerating, but obviously not. Pallin must have the Council on his back by now, no doubt. "We need to get on top of this, now. How many did you narrow it down to from what Hante told us?"

"Well, if you put the biotics together with what Hante mentioned about an elcor, that narrowed it down to twenty-five people on the Citadel as of today, from what our records show." I flick my omni-tool back to the tab I had open from the Citadel's citizen database – an almost worryingly comprehensive record of everyone who's entered the station, details around age, species, name, distinctive factors and risks such as biotics, the works. "Considering the elcor population is in the hundreds of thousands, that's pretty good."

I can see another detail as well; Garrus mentions that the killer is a diplomat in the original Mass Effect, and true enough, I can see one name clearly on the list – Caltan Xenvalis. Junior diplomatic attaché at the elcor embassy, but as far as I'm concerned, the prime suspect. How else to narrow it down to him…

"That's still a lot of people to talk to in one day," the turian points out. "Anyone it looks like we can rule out, or at least move down the priority list?"

"Well, I'm thinking the killer is doing it for credits, right?" I suggest. Seems like that's what the whole case revolves around; given the profile of the victims, we're still working on the assumption that's what helped lure them in. "So it's not going to be anyone already earning a lot of credits..." There's actually some fairly senior executives in biotic amp manufacturing on the list, as well as a couple of researchers; and the biotics field pays plenty well, so that at least drops them down – and keeps the diplomat on the list. Junior ones must get paid alright, but definitely room for improvement. "Taking account of people who must be quite comfortable already, I can drop it down to fourteen likely candidates to talk to."

"Alright. Let's see if there's anything at the scene that narrows it down more, and then go from there." Another frustrated sigh slips from Garrus.

"You alright?"

"It's like you were saying in Hante's shop. This one feels different," the turian says, taking a moment to glance over at me for the first time since we got in the cruiser. "It's too obvious of a location. The killer must know we're investigating, so why do this now instead of cutting their losses?"

"Could've freaked out knowing that we're onto them," I say, offering the only devil's advocate explanation I've been able to think of.

"Why would that make them want to kill again? If they were in a panic, they'd want to flee, not give us more evidence." Garrus shakes his head. "Something's off."

"Well, let's get onto the ground, check out the scene and go from there, yeah?" I suggest. "Either way, once we gone through our suspect list, we're going to be able to narrow it down from there pretty fast too."

The turian nods, but doesn't give it much more of a reply than that, gaze firmly fixed out the windshield again. A little sigh of my own slips free as I lean back against the passenger window, the news reel holograms still prevalent against the more muted colours as we descend towards Tayseri Ward. Guess he's feeling the pressure, given all this.

We both are.

* * *

It's a very different sort of crime scene to the one we were at before; mostly thanks to the media presence occupying most of the space around the crime scene. There can't have been too many officers in place once the news broke, because the cordon looks like it's being reinforced as we speak, prying cameras and reporters being politely pushed back as the street gets blocked off, and it's immediately clear why once Garrus and I finally get some room to land. I catch sight of Pallin, but he's over dealing with the media scrum, which at least gives Garrus and I some time to work uninterrupted.

If the killer's handiwork this morning was surgically precise, no mess, then this...well, you don't have to be in the forensics team to work out that there was a struggle. Definitely a struggle. The officers on the scenes have managed to get tents set up around the bodies to cover them away, but there's literal dents on the walls of the alleyway, blood trails on the ground – far removed from the earlier technique.

Once we get inside the tents to look at the bodies, it fits a lot more with the idea of bodies being 'hacked up' – any kind of method seemingly abandoned. It's still revolting, but I've at least got the constitution from the earlier scene not to throw up this time; looks like the organ removal was a messy process. Cut into quickly, yanking what they could out, and then leaving. Again, it's all so surreal, I have to keep reminding myself that it's really happening; that this, like it or not, is my job now.

Garrus and I duck out of the tent after looking at the second body, and it only takes one exchanged glance for us both to come to a similar conclusion. "It all looks completely different," I say, as Garrus nods his agreement. "The only similarities are that we're in Tayseri Ward, and the organs have been removed. Otherwise..." I trail off as I see a rather familiar looking turian detective walking towards us from across the crime scene, along with a taller, female turian partner. It's Valen – the homicide detective on the same course as me – and his partner is Nyxis, one of the more senior members of the department. Not sure this bodes too well. "Hey, Valen. Didn't realise this was with you guys again."

"Eight corpses elevates it a bit above a _contraband_ case." He really sneers out that word to me; Valen always has carried himself with a level of arrogance, thanks to homicide being the 'most important' role in the department, at least in his eyes. Still, if our test results are anything to go by, the guy is top of the class at almost everything, so if anyone was going to get that job, it'd be him. Nyxis, to her credit, gives him a disapproving look at the apparent gloating.

"The Executor wants this dealt with, fast," she explains. Her tone is quite clipped, professional; no hostility, but not much warmth in it, either. "Thought the extra resource wouldn't go amiss. We've already been through an initial scan with the forensics team, and matched the bodies with the citizenry database. Sent you the initial results."

Garrus and I both have our omni-tools ping at the same time. I've not really had a whole lot of experience with Nyxis, but she's the kind of straight-laced detective that Garrus described earlier; by the book, all about due process, efficient and meticulous to a T. Not that it's a bad thing – the few interactions I've had with her have all been pretty positive, and she's certainly friendly enough, which makes a change from some of the other turians; there's just a constant sense that she likes to keep her professional life _very_ separate from her private one.

The summary file is pretty robust, too; some pulls from the database about the victims. Two humans, Elias and Maria Delam – married couple, lived on the Citadel for ten years; both working lower paid jobs, hence living in Tayseri Ward. Probably just walking home together, and then...this. There's also bits and pieces of DNA evidence picked up from all the blood over the scene and on the bodies; there's some traces of element zero, but my heart sinks when I read the next line.

There's trace krogan DNA – not enough where they've been able to identify anyone specific, but it's there.

That would explain all the carnage – but it also doesn't fit with what we've seen before. I can see Garrus tense up a bit next to me, mandibles flaring out slightly; presumably he's just read the same part that I did. This is really, really bad. Some kind of copycat killer, perhaps? From what Hante was saying about an elcor selling organs, it has to be the case that Garrus mentions in the game, so where does krogan DNA fit in? Did Hante just make something up?

"It doesn't look like it fits in with the MO we saw earlier today," I point out, looking back up at Nyxis. "Not as precise. Copycat, maybe?"

"The killer might have tried attacking one of them, and didn't realise the other was around." Valen jumps in at that, shaking his head dismissively. "We read the earlier analysis around the use of stasis, but if they couldn't maintain that on two people at once, they would've had to turn to more violent means."

"So you think it went wrong?" Garrus asks. "Why such a random attack out here? It doesn't fit with any of the victim profiles that we saw before."

"Could've been planning to transport the bodies elsewhere, and they're low income, Tayseri Ward locals. It's not completely out of the profile, is it?" Valen counters. Certainly confident for someone a day into the job. "Finding the bodies earlier forced them to adapt. They just didn't make a good job of it."

"It does have all the signs of a botched attempt," Nyxis adds, doing a better job of sounding diplomatic about it. "One of the humans must have managed to cut the killer, since we picked the krogan DNA up from a blood trace on clothing."

The more it's explained, the less outlandish it seems. I still don't understand why the killer would double down like this, especially when they've been compromised, but it does have the hallmarks of a murder attempt gone wrong. Biotic traces are consistent, and even if the victims don't meet the usual profile, that might be more a matter of convenience and location than deliberate planning. It just...it doesn't fit. What I know from the games, Hante's lead, the size of the silhouette that the salarian scavenger saw – it's an elcor. It has to be.

While I'm busy thinking to myself, Garrus steps in to at least ask some questions. "So what's the plan now? Wait for the DNA trace to come through?"

"Forensics are saying it'll take a few hours to isolate properly. Lot of other contaminants around here," Valen explains, making eye contact with me, tone making it very obvious that he's talking down to me - and enjoying it. "Until then, we're just keeping the crime scene locked down. Nyxis and I will go and talk to whoever it narrows down as, or we'll start a manhunt on the station, assuming they're not at their address. Unless you two had any other leads to follow up?"

I can see Garrus turning to look at me out of my peripheral vision. Shit. I'm not sure mentioning the elcor is such a good idea; Valen, at the very least, is going to ridicule me for that, especially when there's now hard evidence pointing towards a krogan instead. "We were going to go and interview friends and employers of the earlier victims," I decide on. Keep it nice and vague. "Had the tech teams trying to look through their omni-tool data as well, in case we could pull anything from that."

Nyxis nods. "That would still be worthwhile. The more evidence we can gather on motive, the better. If you two go and conduct those interviews, Valen and I can be on hand once to pursue that match when it comes through." The more cynical part of my brain is figuring they're sticking around so they can get the credit for the arrest – but that might just be from the growing level of annoyance and confusion building up in me. Really not the time to start doubting myself, but given what they've found here, it's hard not to. Her eyes catch on something behind me, giving a respectful nod as I start to turn around. "Executor. We're just getting caught up. Vakarian and Shaw are going to interview related individuals to the earlier victims, while we assist with the crime scene and follow up on the DNA samples." True enough, Pallin is starting to stride towards us, and boy does he look pissed.

"Fine. Tell forensics that if they don't have this done within the next two hours, they'll be up in front of the Council, explaining precisely why we've got a full-scale public panic on our hands. We've got half the wards below the Presidium worrying that they'll be next." His gaze switches over to me, looking doubly annoyed. "And Shaw, they want to talk to you."

"Who does?" I ask, giving Pallin a blank look. Can't think of anyone else on the scene who would need me specifically-

"Westerlund. First human detective involved in a case like this, they want to turn it into a story. I'd rather they were running with that, rather than focusing entirely on the body count, so go and talk to them." Makes sense he's trying to take some of the heat off, but I remember Westerlund News well enough, and I _really_ don't want to be televised, even if helps change the narrative around this at least a little – though I suspect the narrative Pallin's aiming for is that it's all a human's fault that we've not arrested anyone yet.

"What am I supposed to say?" I look over at Garrus in slight panic, who doesn't look ready to interject, given how increasingly irate Pallin is getting.

"Something positive!" Leaving his instructions at that, Pallin practically yanks me by the arm over towards the camera crews; all I get is an apologetic, and somewhat concerned, look from Garrus, a smirk from Valen, and then I'm being spun around towards the familiar face of one of the few modern journalists I actually recognise. For all the wrong reasons.

"Thank you, Executor, this will only take a moment," Khalisah Al-Jilani gushes, broad, patently fake smile on her face; Pallin just shoots her daggers before stalking back off towards the crime scene. She holds it for a few more seconds, watching him leave, before visibly relaxing a bit and flashing me a more genuine one. "That turian, yikes. It took a lot of work to get him to agree to this, let me tell you – had to show him the section we were about to run before he relented. I think _'which other wards are C-Sec neglecting'_ tipped him over, so you're up instead." She says it with such an affable tone, I have to think twice before appreciating that she's basically just blackmailed the Executor of C-Sec into giving her the interview she wants. Christ. As much as I don't like her, she's pretty effective.

"That's, uh, yeah. Impressive." I glance over to the camera, hovering ominously next to her head, lens pointed directly at me. "You're not rolling live, right?"

"What? Oh, no, not yet, we'll want to edit before putting it on the newsreel. Want you looking your best." Right. I find that _very_ hard to believe. "Don't worry. Our viewers have just been dying to hear about the first human to be a C-Sec detective, so it'll be some quick, simple questions. Okay?" She sounds so cheerful about it; I don't remember her being a big fan of the Council in the games, and Westerlund _is_ a human news network, so maybe it's not going to be a total character assassination; at least not on me.

"Okay," I nod, trying to get a handle on my nerves and lifting my eyes up to meet the camera. Just some basic questions – give some rote responses until she's happy, then get out of here. Got enough to worry about, trying to prove that there's an elcor involved somewhere in this mess.

"Alright, great." Al-Jilani opens her omni-tool, nodding. "And we're rolling. So, Detective Shaw, thanks for coming on to talk to us."

It takes an awkward second of silence for me to realise she actually wants something back there, clearing my throat quickly. Shit. "No problem."

"So, with eight dead, is it fair to say that the Tayseri Ward Butcher is staying one step ahead of C-Sec?" I try to maintain a composed expression, even with my initial instinct being to look at her in shock. Quick, simple questions? Really?

"No, I don't think that's fair," I reply, shaking my head quickly. "We're pursuing a number of active leads, and we've got patrols throughout Tayseri Ward and neighbouring areas keeping the public safe. I'd just advise everyone to remain calm, report anything suspicious to C-Sec, and go about their business."

Al-Jilani looks a bit ruffled by that; not because I said anything controversial, but I think that's the problem. It's a very rote statement, the kind she'll have got from Pallin already. "Now, Detective, we've heard plenty of that from the turian side – what my viewers want to know is, what's your perspective on this? Do you feel like being the only human on the case is getting in the way?"

Smear piece on C-Sec. Well, I guess that makes sense, given the Westerlund agenda. If they're not bashing the Council, C-Sec make for a pretty good target too. "There's no 'sides'. We're one department," I reply, tone coming out blunter than I'd intended. "If that's what a turian detective told you, then it's no different coming from me. They're just the facts of the matter."

"I see." She really doesn't sound impressed, though I'm not sure why she was expecting to me hop on board with slamming the department. "So, you've had no problems settling into the role?"

"Nope. Everyone's been very welcoming." I mean, that's not _strictly_ true - but Garrus has been pretty good to me, and given that he's the one I'm going to be work with directly most of the time, that's enough. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of saying yes, anyway. "C-Sec's got a good team; everyone just wants to look after the station." That might be pushing it into being a bit too fluffy - sure enough, Al-Jilani changes the subject.

"Be that as it may, we've also been reporting on leaked documents this month, implying that human appointments to C-Sec are actually part of a Council ploy to draw attention away from the continued under-representation of human politicians in Citadel affairs." What the hell is she talking about...? "What's your reaction to that?"

"Sorry, is this interview about the case, or C-Sec as a whole?" I ask, looking back over at her with a frown. "I'm happy to help reassure the public that we're going to get this solved, but if you just want speculation on Citadel politics, I really do have work to get on with." The camera's still rolling, but if she wants to use that, she can go ahead. I don't really fancy playing along with this.

"So you've got no comment?"

"I don't watch a whole lot of Westerlund, so whatever you're talking about must've passed me by," I say, folding my arms. Not the smooth interview I'd been hoping for, admittedly, but beats getting drawn in. "Wasn't aware there was any controversy."

Al-Jilani sighs, flicking her omni-tool out again, and the light on her camera switches off. "Look, cut me some slack. I was hoping you were going to be a little more honest about things, give me something to work with. I don't want to have to run that section I was talking about before, but if you're just going to toe Pallin's line..." She leaves that hanging in the air. Presumably as a threat.

"Honestly, I could give less of a shit about whatever wrangling is going on behind the scenes with humans wanting a Council seat or whatever. Really. I don't care," I say flatly. I don't have to put on an act for that; it's the truth. They'll get their seat one way or another, and I'm not in any great rush to start pushing that particular agenda. More than enough problems on my plate without being the pro-human figurehead that she seems to be pushing for. "We've got a killer to deal with, and there's plenty of aliens working on it who care just as much as I do. I'm not going to stab them in the back to make your job easier, and I'm not toeing anyone's line. That's just my opinion. Seriously." As much as I dislike Pallin, ragging on him on a well-watched news channel definitely isn't the way to go about improving things.

"Fine. Didn't take you for a xeno-lover," she mutters, shrugging. "We'll run with our original segment. Thanks for taking the time." Oh. I suppose that's that, then. Losing out on my fifteen minutes of fame in the public eye - somehow, that makes me feel happier than if she'd actually decided to use that footage.

"Don't mention it, really. Keep up the quality reporting," I reply sarcastically, but she doesn't look particularly bothered, heading back towards her van. I can definitely see why a Renegade Shepard would, at the very least, smash her camera, but that risks making the story – and annoying or not, I've not really got the temperament for solving problems via smashing them. No doubt this'll piss Pallin off further down the line when he sees which segment they go with, but I'm sure he'd rather this than having one of his own detectives slag off C-Sec for the whole Citadel to see.

I head back over towards where I can see Garrus waiting – Valen and Nyxis have moved off, and Pallin seems to be dealing with some separate media outlets, so I guess he's just waiting on me before we head off elsewhere. I steal a glance down at my omni-tool; it's only barely even the afternoon on station time, but I'm absolutely exhausted already. I guess most days aren't going to be like this, but given the high intensity, it's seriously draining.

"How did it go? We're not going to be seeing you on all the news channels as we fly back over to the Presidium, right?"

I give a laugh at that, shaking my head. "I think she was after something a little different to what I said. Wanted me to talk about how awful C-Sec is."

"And you told her you've been having a great time, getting involved in a case like this?" Even with everything going on, the turian's sense of humour does buoy my mood somewhat, rolling my eyes at him as we head back over to the cruiser.

"Pretty much word for word, yeah." Garrus laughs too, popping open the doors via his omni-tool. "So, that krogan DNA that they found. Any thoughts? I'm guessing you're not entirely convinced either."

"It still doesn't feel right. Not after what Hante and the salarian said earlier. It's hard to say otherwise when there's DNA evidence, but...it just feels like there's something more going on here."

"Just can't place it. I know what you mean," I mutter. There has to be a connection somewhere. "Going to be hard to argue unless we can prove something, though. Pallin's going to want this wrapped up as soon as they can work out who the DNA match is."

"I'd give forensics maybe three hours to get it worked out, and then another hour for Nyxis and Valen to find their krogan. Four hours to go and get some statements," the turian mutters. "We're going to have to split up when we get to the Presidium, if we want to even get halfway through everyone we want to talk to."

"Better drive quickly then, hadn't you?" I smirk to him, getting a mock-irritated mandible clack for my troubles as he fires up the engine. Four hours to prove that my hunch isn't crazy.

No pressure.


End file.
